SUELLA Braverman has been criticised for claiming that the UK is facing an “invasion” of migrants.

The beleaguered Home Secretary was in the Commons facing questions over the conditions at the Manston asylum processing centre in Kent. 

Over the weekend, the number of people staying there reached 4,000. It is supposed to only house 1,600. 

Ms Braverman told the Commons: “Let’s be clear about what is really going on here: the British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast and which party is not.

“Some 40,000 people have arrived on the south coast this year alone. Many of them facilitated by criminal gangs, some of them actual members of criminal gangs.

“So let’s stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress. The whole country knows that is not true. It’s only the honourable members opposite who pretend otherwise.

“We need to be straight with the public. The system is broken. Illegal migration is out of control and too many people are interested in playing political parlour games, covering up the truth than solving the problem.”

SNP MP Anne McLaughlin said she was "disgusted" by the comment.

Taking to Twitter, she wrote: "Disgusted, absolutely disgusted to hear a Home Secretary deliberately use inflammatory language about vulnerable asylum seekers - 'scourge', 'invasion'. Here's a word for you @SuellaBraverman - SHAMEFUL."

Her colleague Tommy Sheppard referenced the firebombing of a Border Force immigration centre in Dover on Sunday.

While there has been no confirmation of the motive, the suspect is a white, 66-year-old from the High Wycombe area.

He was later found dead. 

Mr Sheppard tweeted: "Shameful stuff. This far-right and inflammatory rhetoric comes the day after a migrant centre was attacked."

Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said the language would embolden racists. 

She tweeted: “One day after petrol bombs were thrown at the Dover immigration centre, Suella Braverman talks of ‘an invasion on the South coast’.

“That is why racists and extremists feel emboldened to attack vulnerable asylum seekers. The Government needs to stop inflaming hate.”

Another Labour MP Zarah Sultana said: “Language like this – portraying migrants as “invaders” – whips-up hate & spreads division.”

In the Commons, Ms Braverman criticised Labour MP  Rachael Maskell for using “inflammatory language” after she said conditions in Manston were “clearly unsafe and inhumane.” 

She was referencing reports of number of cases of diphtheria, scabies and MSRA at the site.

Ms Braverman replied: “Whilst the issue at Manston is indisputably concerning. I don’t want us to create alarm unnecessarily, so when she talks about the language that she uses, I do gently urge her not to use inflammatory language.”

Ms Braverman later agreed with suggestions from Tory MP Lee Anderson that some migrants can “get on a dinghy and go straight back to France” if they believe the accommodation in the UK is not good enough.

Mr Anderson told the Commons: “We’ve got Albanian criminals leaving Albania, which is a safe country, the same criminals then setting up shop in France, they’re then leaving France, which is a safe country, and coming to the UK across the Channel, and then when they get into accommodation we’ve got the opposition parties saying the accommodation is not good enough for them.

“Or does the Home Secretary agree with me that if the accommodation is not good enough for them they can get on a dinghy and go straight back to France.”

Ms Braverman replied: “Well, my honourable friend is right.

“The average cost per night is £150 per person per night in a hotel. By my standards, that’s quite a nice hotel, I’m afraid, and therefore any complaints that the accommodation isn’t good enough is frankly absolutely indulgent and ungrateful.”