IMMIGRATION minister Robert Jenrick has attempted to row back on the Home Secretary’s claims that the UK is being ‘invaded’ by migrants. 

Suella Braverman shocked and infuriated opposition politicians as well as a number of MPs on her own benches when she made the comment during a statement in the Commons on Monday. 

Questioned about the remark, Mr Jenrick told the BBC: “It is not a phrase that I have used, but I do understand the need to be straightforward with the general public about the challenge that we as ministers face.”

On Sky News, he claimed Ms Braverman had used the word to describe the scale of the challenge.

“In a job like mine you have to choose your words very carefully. And I would never demonise people coming to this country in pursuit of a better life. I understand and appreciate our obligation to refugees,” he said.

“The scale of the challenge we’re facing is very, very significant.”

Around 40,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats so far this year.

Home Office officials previously warned the total for 2022 could exceed 60,000.

“Invasion is a way of describing the sheer scale of the challenge,” he said.

“That’s what Suella Braverman was trying to express. She was also speaking, I think – and this is an important point – for those people who live on the south coast, who, day in, day out, are seeing migrant boats landing on their beaches.”

During the statement, 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.”

She added: “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.”

The comment came the day after a processing centre in Dover was firebombed. 

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

He was later found dead. 

 

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper accused Ms Braverman of ramping up her rhetoric because she had no answers to the problems.

“No home secretary serious about public safety or national security would use the language Suella Braverman did the day after a petrol bomb attack on a Dover centre,” Ms Cooper said.

“But that’s the point. She isn’t serious about any of those things.”

SNP Home Affairs spokesperson Stuart McDonald said the "incendiary language" made a "mockery of Rishi Sunak's claims about so-called compassionate conservatism."

He added: "There's nothing compassionate about comparing vulnerable asylum seekers to an 'invasion' or dreaming of shipping them off to Rwanda.

"The Home Secretary is a liability - and she should never have been reappointed after she was sacked for breaching the ministerial code. Even her own Tory colleagues now openly admit she's completely unfit for office."

Sir Roger Gale, the Tory MP for North Thanet, who has Manston migrant centre in his constituency, said the Home Secretary was "only really interested in playing the right wing."

He added: “The fact of the matter is that, of course, I’m also defending my constituents’ interest because the facility at Manston was designed to turn people around in 24 hours, maximum 48 hours, and move them on, it’s a processing centre, not a refugee camp.

“I was given a clear undertaking by Priti Patel as home secretary and by the Minister of State that that is what would happen and that there would be no expansion of the facility.

“Over the last few days, we have seen an almost doubling of the size of the number of people in Manston and a massive building of further accommodation, and that is not acceptable.

“It’s in breach of the undertakings that I was given and I’m not prepared to accept it. I don’t accept or trust this Home Secretary’s work.”

He said 

Asked if No 10 would describe it as an “invasion”, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “The Home Secretary was seeking to express the sheer scale of the challenge that faces the country, with people, including a significant proportion of economic migrants, seeking to make this journey.”

Pressed on how Rishi Sunak would describe the scale of the situation, he said: “I haven’t asked him that specific question.”

 

The spokesman said Mr Sunak told his Cabinet at a meeting on Tuesday that the UK will “always be a compassionate, welcoming country”

 

During the statement, Ms Braverman repeatedly denied claims that she had refused to book more hotel accommodation for migrants.

Asked about an LBC report that the Home Secretary refused to sign off on hotels because they were in Tory-supporting areas, Mr Jenrick told the radio station: “We are working to try to disperse individuals across the whole of the United Kingdom so that this burden is borne fairly.

“There’s no politics in that, it’s a simple matter of practicality, but that is a symptom of the problem, which is that too many people are crossing the Channel illegally in the small boats and our job is to try to tackle that. There are no easy answers to that.”

There are around 4,000 migrants being held at the Manston processing facility, which is designed to hold a maximum of 1,600.

Legally, people should only be there for 24 hours before being moved on, however, some families have been there for weeks, and some are reported to have been sleeping on the floor.

Asked about reports of cases of diphtheria, MRSA and scabies at the centre, Mr Jenrick told BBC Breakfast: “Well, those reports are not correct. They’ve been exaggerated. I spoke to the doctors who are on site and there is a very good medical centre there with – when I was there – three doctors plus paramedics supporting people with medical conditions.

“There have been four cases of diphtheria in a population of around 4,000. But those are all individuals who came into the site with that condition.

“They didn’t pick it up there, as far as we’re aware. They’ve been isolated and they’re being treated appropriately.

“But that’s not to say that I’m content with the condition of the site. I’m not.”

Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said the Home Office needed to “get a grip” of the situation.

He told Sky News: “What’s happening at Manston, when I visited, was people were sleeping on the floors, on the rubber mats down on the floors, and then very thin blankets or mattresses. Lots and lots of people in a room, all squished in together, very uncomfortable.

“The room for families has lots and lots of different families all sharing the same room, very young children, older children.

“For a few hours, that would be acceptable, but where people are spending long periods of time there, it just isn’t.”

He added: “It’s extremely concerning that children are being asked to sleep on the floor in accommodation that’s wholly unsuitable.”