Suella Braverman has refused to apologise to a Holocaust survivor who said the Home Secretary’s description of migrants as an “invasion” was akin to language the Nazis used to justify murdering her family.
Ms Braverman was confronted by Joan Salter, 83, during a meeting in her Fareham constituency in Hampshire on Friday evening.
Ms Salter, who has been recognised with an MBE for her work on Holocaust education, likened Ms Braverman’s rhetoric on migrants attempting to cross the English Channel to that used by the Nazis during the Second World War.
In footage of the exchange, provided by the charity Freedom From Torture, Ms Salter said: “I am a child survivor of the Holocaust.
“In 1943, I was forced to flee my birthplace in Belgium and went across war-torn Europe and dangerous seas until I finally was able to come to the UK in 1947.
“When I hear you using words against refugees like ‘swarms’ and an ‘invasion’, I am reminded of the language used to dehumanise and justify the murder of my family and millions of others.
“Why do you find the need to use that kind of language?”
Ms Braverman thanked Ms Salter for her question, and said that she “shared a huge amount of concern and sympathy” over the “challenge” of illegal immigration, adding that her own parents were not born in Britain.
Speaking about her parents, Ms Braverman said: “They owe everything to this country and they have taught me a deep and profound love of Britain and British people.
“Their tolerance, their generosity, their decency, their fair play.
“That also means that we must not shy away from saying there is a problem.
“There is a huge problem that we have right now when it comes to illegal migration, the scale of which we have not known before.
“I won’t apologise for the language that I have used to demonstrate the scale of the problem.
“I see my job as being honest with the British people and honest for the British people.
“I’m not going to shy away from difficult truths nor am I going to conceal what is the reality that we are all watching.”
Ms Braverman added that she was “incredibly proud” of the UK’s recent immigration record but added that “we have a problem with people exploiting our generosity, breaking our laws and undermining our system”.
“We must accept the enormity of the problem if we’ve got any chance of solving it,” she said.
Ms Braverman’s answer was greeted with applause from the audience.
Born Fanny Zimetbaum in Brussels in 1940 to Polish Jewish parents, Ms Salter was three months old when Belgium was invaded by the Nazis.
I won’t apologise for the language that I have used to demonstrate the scale of the problem.
