Suella Braverman Speech: Home Secretary, Suella Braverman challenged the UN’s convention for protecting refugees during a speech on migration in the US where she claimed women and gay people must face more than bias if they are going to qualify as a refugee.
Suella Braverman’s Speech on Multiculturalism
During a speech on migration in the United States, Britain’s home secretary Suella Braverman said that Multiculturalism has failed in Europe and threatened social unity. She also asked whether the United Nation’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which was drawn up after World War II, was “fit for our modern age,” according to a BBC report.
Speaking at a center-right think tank in Washington, an event organized by the American Enterprise Institute, She said a “misguided dogma of multiculturalism” has allowed people to come to the UK with the aim of “undermining the stability and threatening the security of society.”
UK’s home secretary speaker, “Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate. It has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it. They could be in society but not in society. If cultural change is too rapid and too big, then what was already there is diluted.”
Further, she added, “And, in extreme cases, they could pursue lives aimed at undermining the stability and threatening the security of society.”
Her statements were criticized by the UN Refugee Agency and then UNHCR rejected her opinion and said, the convention had saved “millions of lives.”
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman on UN Refugee Convention
Suella Braverman was rebuked by the UN refugee agency due to her remarks on ‘uncontrolled and illegal migration. It all happened after Suella Braverman, a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom, gave a speech that the international community had failed to reform the UN’s refugee convention of 1951 and (ECHR) the European Convention on Human Rights.
She said, “The first [reason] is simply that it is very hard to renegotiate these instruments. The second is much more cynical. The fear of being branded a racist or illiberal. Any attempt to reform the refugee convention will see you smeared as anti-refugee,”
She continued, “I’m here in America to talk about a critical and shared global challenge: uncontrolled and illegal migration, It is an existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the West.”
She started her speech by saying that uncontrolled and unlawful migration posed an “existential challenge” to Europe and the US.
“Where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary. But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if, in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin is sufficient to qualify for protection.”
“The prime minister himself has said we will do whatever it takes to stop the boats and that is my position.”
The UNHCR supported the convention and questioned Braverman’s difference between persecution and discrimination.
“The refugee convention remains as relevant today as when it was adopted. It said, Where individuals are at risk of persecution on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, it is crucial that they are able to seek safety and protection.”
