Suella Braverman has warned MPs she “will not be hectored by out of touch lefties” with “accusations of bigotry” over her small boats policy.
The home secretary, speaking at the second reading of the Illegal Migration Bill, hit out at those who have criticised the government’s new policy.
After being announced last week, it has come under intense criticism in a row that saw ex-footballer and BBC pundit Gary Lineker taken off air.
On Monday evening, after hours of heated debate, the second reading passed the Commons by a majority of 62 so will now go to the committee stage where a detailed examination of the proposed law will take place and amendments put forward.
Ms Braverman, whose parents emigrated to the UK from Kenya and Mauritius in the 1960s, told MPs on Monday: “I want to put something on the record, it’s perfectly respectable for a child of immigrants like me to say I’m deeply grateful to live here, to say that immigration has been overwhelmingly good for Great Britain but that we’ve had too much of it in recent years.
“And to say that uncontrolled and illegal migration is simply bad.
“Yet, despite our reasonable concerns we’ve raised on several occasions, I am subject to the most grotesque slurs for saying simple truths about the impact of unlimited and illegal immigration.
“The worst among them poisoned by the extreme ideology of identity politics suggests that a person’s skin colour should dictate their political views.”
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The home secretary added: “I will not be hectored by out of touch lefties or anyone for that matter.
“I won’t be patronised on what appropriate views for someone of my background can hold. I will not back down when faced with spurious accusations of bigotry.
“When such smears seep into the discourse of this chamber, as they did last week, accusations that this government’s policies, policies backed by the majority of the British people, are bigoted, are xenophobic, are dog whistles to racists, it is irresponsible and frankly beneath the dignity of this place.
“Politicians of all stripes should know better and they should choose their words carefully.”
Ms Braverman added there is a “moral duty to stop the boats” given the risk of life and insisted the policy “does, in fact, guarantee humanitarian protection for those who genuinely need it”.
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10:10
Suella Braverman: ‘We’re not breaking the law’
“Our policy is profoundly and at heart a humane attempt to break the incentive that sustains the business model of the smuggling gangs,” she said.
The controversial bill has been denounced by the UN’s refugee agency as an effective “asylum ban” and it was a stormy opening to the second reading.
Chris Skidmore became the second Conservative MP after Caroline Nokes to criticise the bill, saying he could not vote for it as he is “not prepared to break international law”.
Former prime minister Theresa May said: “What should be clear from this is whenever you close a route, the migrants and the people smugglers find another way, and anybody who thinks that this Bill will deal with the issue of illegal migration once and for all is wrong.
“Not least because a significant number, if not the majority, of people who are here illegally don’t come on small boats, they come legally and overstay their visas.”
Asked about her intervention on a visit to the US, Rishi Sunak said: “I’m confident that our Bill represents the best way to grip this problem.
“I’ve also always been clear that there is no overnight easy one simple solution to what is a complicated problem. It will take lots of different interventions.”
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper received many cheers from her side as she said her party will not back the bill.
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Labour: ‘Deeply damaging chaos’
She said the bill is effectively a “traffickers charter” that will “lock up children” and remove support from women who have been trafficked.
“It makes it easier for those gangs as well,” Ms Cooper added.
“It won’t return everyone, in fact it makes it harder to get return agreements. It won’t clear the asylum backlog, in fact it will mean tens of thousands more people in asylum accommodation and hotels.
“It won’t deliver controlled and managed safe alternatives. Instead, it will cut them back and it will rip up our long-standing commitment to international law. It will lock up children.”
Image: Demonstrators protesting in Parliament Square, London
As MPs debated the bill, hundreds of protesters gathered in Parliament Square to demonstrate against it.
Zrinka Bralo, CEO of Migrants Organise, said: “We are here to stand up for dignity and justice and speak out against this new bill, which is further dehumanising and demonising refugees and is damaging our democracy.”
Donald Trump has said he is “thinking” of going to Turkey on Thursday for potential peace talks between Ukraine and Russia’s leaders.
The US president, who previously claimed he could end the conflict in a day, has pushed for both sides to meet to bring the fighting to an end.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy called out Vladimir Putin to meet him on Thursday in Istanbul, but the Kremlin leader has yet to respond.
Speaking late on Monday, Mr Trump said: “I was thinking about flying over. I don’t know where I am going be on Thursday.
“I’ve got so many meetings.
“There’s a possibility there I guess, if I think things can happen.”
Mr Trump has headed to the Middle East this week on the first major foreign trip of his second administration, visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.
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Mr Zelenskyy backed the prospect of Mr Trump attending the talks.
He said: “I supported President Trump with the idea of direct talks with Putin. I have openly expressed my readiness to meet.
“And of course, all of us in Ukraine would appreciate it if President Trump could be there with us at this meeting in Turkey.”
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Trump 100: Could Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump really meet?
Russia playing for time?
However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, speaking on Monday, refused to say who, if anyone, would be travelling to Turkey from the Russian side.
“Overall, we’re determined to seriously look for ways to achieve a long-term peaceful settlement. That is all,” Mr Peskov said.
This came after the “coalition of the willing”, including Sir Keir Starmer, threatened Russia with fresh sanctions if it failed to comply with an unconditional 30-day ceasefire starting on Monday.
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It has been an extraordinary few hours which may well set the tone for a hugely consequential week ahead.
In the time that it took me to fly from London to Saudi Arabia, where President Donald Trump will begin a pivotal Middle East tour this week, a flurry of news has emerged on a range of key global challenges.
• On the Ukraine war: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is prepared to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul – this announcement came minutes after Trump urged Zelenskyy to agree to the meeting.
• On the China-US trade war: The White House says the two countries have agreed to a “trade deal”. China said the talks, in Geneva, were “candid, in-depth and constructive”.
All three of these developments represent dramatic shifts in three separate challenges and hint at the remarkable influence the US president is having globally.
This sets the ground for what could be a truly consequential week for Trump’s presidency and his ability to effect change.
On Ukraine, Putin held a late-night news conference at the Kremlin on Saturday at which he made the surprise proposal of talks with Zelenskyy in Istanbul this Thursday.
But he rejected European and US calls for an immediate ceasefire.
The move was widely interpreted as a delay tactic.
Trump then issued a social media post urging Zelenskyy to accept the Russian proposal; effectively to call Putin’s bluff.
The American president wrote: “President Putin of Russia doesn’t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY. At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the U.S., will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly! I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who’s too busy celebrating the Victory of World War ll, which could not have been won (not even close!) without the United States of America. HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!”
“We await a full and lasting ceasefire, starting from tomorrow, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy. There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The prospect of Putin and Zelenskyy together in Istanbul on Thursday is remarkable.
It raises the possibility that Trump would want to be there too.
Image: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomes other world leaders to Kyiv. Pic: Presidential Office of Ukraine/dpa/AP Images
Israel’s war in Gaza
On Gaza, it’s been announced that US envoy Steve Witkoff will arrive in Israel on Monday to finalise details for the release of Idan Alexander, an Israeli-American hostage being held by Hamas.
The development comes after it was confirmed that Mr Witkoff has been holding discussions with Israel, Qatar and Egypt and, through them, with Hamas.
The talks focused on a possible Gaza hostage deal and larger peace discussions for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, officials from the United States and China have been holding talks in Geneva, Switzerland, to resolve their trade war, which was instigated by Trump’s tariffs against China.
Late on Sunday evening, the White House released a statement claiming that a trade deal had been struck.
In a written statement, titled “U.S. Announces China Trade Deal in Geneva”, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said: “I’m happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks… We will be giving details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive. We had the vice premier, two vice ministers, who were integrally involved, Ambassador Jamieson, and myself. And I spoke to President Trump, as did Ambassador Jamieson, last night, and he is fully informed of what is going on. So, there will be a complete briefing tomorrow morning.”
Beijing Global Times newspaper quoted the Chinese vice premier as saying that the talks were candid, in-depth and constructive.
However, the Chinese fell short of calling it a trade deal.
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In a separate development, US media reports say that Qatar is preparing to gift Trump a Boeing 747 from its royal fleet, which he would use as a replacement for the existing and aging Air Force One plane.
The Qatari government says no deal has been finalised, but the development is already causing controversy because of the optics of accepting gifts of this value.
Of all the fronts in Donald Trump’s trade war, none was as dramatic and economically threatening as the sky-high tariffs he imposed on China.
There are a couple of reasons: first, because China is and was the single biggest importer of goods into the US and, second, because of the sheer height of the tariffs imposed by the White House in recent months.
In short, tariffs of over 100% were tantamount to a total embargo on goods coming from the United States’ main trading partner. That would have had enormous economic implications, not just for the US but every other country around the world (these are the world’s biggest and second-biggest economies, after all).
So the truce announced on Monday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent is undoubtedly a very big deal indeed.
In short, China will still face an extra 30% tariffs (the 20% levies cast as punishment for China’s involvement in fentanyl imports and the 10% “floor” set on “Liberation Day”) on top of the residual 10% average from the Biden era.
But the rest of the extra tariffs will be paused for 90 days. China, in turn, has suspended its own retaliatory tariffs on the US.
The market has responded as you would probably have expected, with share prices leaping in relief. But that raises a question: is the trade war now over? Now that the two sides have blinked, can globalisation continue more or less as it had before?
That, it turns out, is a trickier and more complex question than it might first seem.
Image: Pic: AP
For one thing, even if one were to assume this is a permanent truce rather than a suspended one, it still leaves tariffs considerably higher than they were only last year. And China faces tariffs far higher than most other countries (tot up the existing ones and the Trump era ones and China faces average tariffs of around 40%, while the average for most countries is between 8% and 14%, according to Capital Economics).
In other words, the US is still implementing an economic policy designed to increase the cost of doing business with China, even if it no longer attempts to prevent it altogether. The fact that last week’s trade agreement with the UK contains clauses seemingly designed to encourage it to raise trade barriers against China for reasons of “security” only reinforces this suspicion. The trade war is still simmering, even if it’s no longer as hot as it was a few days ago.
And more broadly, the deeper impact of the trade rollercoaster in recent months is unlikely to disappear altogether. Companies remain more nervous about investing in factories and expansions in the face of such deep economic instability. No-one is entirely sure the White House won’t just U-turn once again.
That being said, it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that the US president has blinked in this trade war. In the face of a potential recession, he has pulled back from the scariest and most damaging of his tariffs, earlier and to a greater extent than many had expected.