Suella Braverman： “We Are Not in Control of Our Border”
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Summary
In this episode, former Home Secretary Theresa May talks to Ella Brealey about her time as a Tory MP and why she believes Britain should leave the European Union. She also talks about why she is proud of the country she grew up in, and what it has done for the world.
Transcript
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The simple fact is we are not in control of our southern border.
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It's now time to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
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Well, unfortunately, I was a lone voice advocating that around the cabinet table.
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It just seems that the Conservative Party can't actually implement their policies.
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You, the government, previous governments have failed to do it. Why?
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Why is it happening? We keep voting, we keep saying we want to deal with this issue.
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Ultimately, there has been a political resistance.
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The Prime Minister, you know, didn't want to engage in this subject and didn't want to...
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There was a huge mountain of resistance that I was met with from the Treasury itself.
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Don't give me a politician's answer, because we both know your party,
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to put it very bluntly, is screwed. Do you think you will win the next election?
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Well, I have said already, on the evidence before us, we are heading for electoral oblivion.
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Things can change. There is still time, and that is why it is my constant plea to the Prime Minister to change course.
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So, Ella, welcome to the show. You're a recent and former Home Secretary, so the stuff we want to talk to you about was very much the stuff that was in your brief when you were in that job.
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Before we do, I just thought it would be interesting to find out a little bit about who you are.
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How did, because you know, the way politics seems to happen nowadays is sort of this person pops up and suddenly the media tells you who they are,
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and that's the opinion everyone has. Who are you? How did you get here?
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Well, I'm a mum. First and foremost, I have two young children.
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I'm someone who has been originally born in London, in Wembley.
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My parents are from Mauritius and Kenya. They came here in the 1960s with pretty much nothing.
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And we are proud patriots, very proud and grateful to be part of this great country, this amazing country, what Britain's done for the world.
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And I grew up in London. I worked as a barrister for a decade, the self-employed bar.
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And then I was elected to Parliament as a Conservative MP for the wonderful constituency of Fairham in Hampshire.
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And so it's probably coming up to nine years that I've been a Conservative politician.
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It's interesting that you say something that we do not hear, not just politicians, but anyone say anymore,
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which is the wonderful things Britain has done for the world.
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What are you talking about? So I thought we were just evil and, you know, empire and all of that.
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Well, you'd be forgiven for having that view, wouldn't you today?
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Because it's very unfashionable to talk about the greatness of Britain and Britain's contribution to civilization over the centuries.
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But reasons why I admire our country, indeed, why my parents, who were children of empire,
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children of empire, who grew up admiring the mother country and Britain and the British Empire, are manifold.
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It was Britain that, you know, brought us Magna Carta, the basis of our common law system and civil liberties.
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It's Britain that is the home of parliamentary democracy.
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Our houses of parliament is the mother of all parliaments and has emulated the world over for a reason,
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It's Britain that led the Industrial Revolution.
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It's Britain that has led the fight against the Nazis in World War II.
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It's Britain that has led the new chapter for the West in terms of self-government and supremacy when it comes to Brexit.
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It's Britain that's led many bold and courageous moves on diplomacy and foreign policy,
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not least in terms of the fight against Putin and the fight against Islamism around the world.
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So I'm incredibly proud of what Britain has represented over the centuries.
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And I'm very optimistic for our country in the future.
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And you mentioned your parents coming over as children of empire.
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We have heard some people who say, well, you know, a lot of people who did come over,
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and including the Windrush generation, they came over with these grand expectations,
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but perhaps were not treated so well when they got here.
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Listen, my parents came here for kind of different reasons.
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My father was of Asian origin and was born in Nairobi in Kenya.
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And in the 1960s, he was effectively expelled from East Africa with many of the Asian people.
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And he didn't want to come to the United Kingdom.
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It was Britain that offered him opportunity and safety.
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And so he came here, I think he was 19 years old, with nothing, no money, no family, no friends.
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And he feels very grateful for the opportunities that Britain gave him.
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He started from very humble beginnings on the shop floor of a paint factory.
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You wouldn't mind me saying that about him, but he's in his 70s.
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But he feels very proud and grateful for Britain's welcome and the camaraderie of the British people.
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Of course, there was hostility when he first came.
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But overall, this was a welcoming country for him and has allowed him to lead a very safe and prosperous life.
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My mother, on the other hand, was actually much more willing to come to the United Kingdom.
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She was recruited as an 18-year-old girl by the NHS in Mauritius after the war.
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And she came here in the 1960s really because she wanted to leave the confines of a small island.
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And the NHS was a symbol, a beacon of excellence and opportunity for her.
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And to be part of Britain was a great honour for her.
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She served as a Conservative counsellor for about 16 years.
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And she too would say that she's incredibly proud of what Britain gave her here as a young adult,
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but also of what the British Empire did for her country, Mauritius.
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If you look at what the British did in those countries, they brought the civil service,
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they brought the ports, the infrastructure, the education system, the legal system,
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Because there is this narrative, particularly amongst the left, that if you are the product
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of a second generation immigrant or first generation immigrant, you should actually be on the left.
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Again, that's a really good question, because as you say, there's a perception that if you're
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from an ethnic minority, you can't possibly be of the right or a member of the Conservative family.
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And I'm a Conservative because I believe fundamentally in aspiration.
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And I believe that it doesn't matter what skin colour you have, where your parents, what your parents
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do, how rich you are, what school you went to, there's no limit on what you can achieve with an
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attitude of ingenuity, determination, personal responsibility. I think that's one of the
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defining aspects that I really relate to when it comes to the Conservative philosophy, personal
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responsibility, service, community, family, fairness. And I think that those values are what
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have made our party great over the years, and which can be very inspirational. We have many stories
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in our Conservative heritage of people overcoming the odds, starting with very little, but through
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their own efforts and their determination, achieving huge success for the benefit of the greater good.
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I think that's a wonderfully empowering and inspiring vision that I hold dear to my heart.
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Look, I quite agree with you. But touching on the Conservative Party, it seems to me,
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not to put too fine a point of it, but the Conservative Party is in crisis when they actually,
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with what they say they're going to achieve, and they consistently fail time after time.
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When you look at issues like immigration, when you look at issues like housing,
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it just seems that the Conservative Party can't actually implement their policies.
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Listen, I'm proud to be a Conservative, and I think we've achieved a lot over the last decade.
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And, but I also agree, we've got to be honest about where we've fallen short. Immigration, I'm afraid,
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is one area, but we have to be honest about not just the Conservative governance of it, but also
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actually previous Labour administrations. Because if you look at migration, and particularly net migration,
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legal migration, let's park the issue of the small boats aside for a moment, but the issue over which we
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have control, administration after administration has roundly failed to lower incoming numbers, lower net
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migration, despite promises being made to the British people, and despite the British people voting time
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and time again for lower overall numbers. You know, I voted for Brexit, partially, because I wanted to lower
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migration. I campaigned for it. It's a very difficult decision for me to take as a new MP. I had to have a conversation with the
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then Prime Minister David Cameron, who hadn't been an MP for a year at that stage. And, you know,
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no one wants to go against the boss at that point in your career anyway. And, you know, I had to say to him,
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Prime Minister, I'm unable to support you, I'm unable to vote to remain in the European Union, because
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we need to lower the numbers coming into this country. And we'll only be able to do that if
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we're outside of the EU. So Brexit was a call by the British people to lower numbers. The 2019
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general election and our manifesto pledge was a call from the British people to lower numbers. And I'm
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afraid if you look at the recent numbers, as of November, we have 700,000 net migration coming into
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this country compared to 240,000 in 2019. So the numbers have more than tripled. And I think that
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we need to do better on legal migration. So if I were a mainstream journalist,
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this would be my gotcha moment, an opportunity to go, well, you were the Home Secretary. Why didn't you?
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Which, by the way, is a fair question to some extent. And we can get into that. I am more interested
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more broadly about the point you actually made, which is consecutive governments over decades now have
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absolutely not delivered on the things that they have told and promised the British people.
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Why is that? I hear various rumors, you know, the civil service ideologically just won't let it happen.
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You know, the Treasury is more interested in growth than delivering on the promises about
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we just care about the economy or rather the numbers that we can then sell to the British public
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so much that this issue goes by the wayside. You've been there, you've been in charge of the
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department that is there to control this issue. And you, the government, previous governments,
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have failed to do it. Why? Why is it happening? That's what so many people say to us. Like,
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we keep voting, we keep saying we want to deal with this issue. Nothing happens. Why?
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Well, having served as Home Secretary, I think, ultimately, there has been
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a political resistance to seriously grapple with the challenges posed by unprecedented levels of
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migration. Sorry to interrupt. What does political resistance mean? Who are you talking about? Is it
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the civil service? Is it your own party? Is it the media? Who is causing this not to happen?
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Well, I can speak only from my own experience and what I've observed.
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You know, I think that, you know, for my part, I've been very eager to deliver on that policy
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to lower net migration. And technically, it's very easy to do, actually, from a home office or
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government point of view. You don't need to pass a law. You don't need to worry about human rights or
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the court in Strasbourg. You don't need to get any new votes on it. You actually just have to take
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an administrative and executive decision to do it. And I had the hope that I would be able to
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do that. And unfortunately, I was met with a lot of resistance from around the cabinet table. And
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the prime minister, you know, didn't want to engage in this subject and didn't want to
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Why do you think? You say the cabinet table, that means more than one person, right? So we're talking
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about a conservative party elected on the promise to lower migration in 2010 to the tens of thousands.
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We are so far off that. And yet you're saying people within the cabinet of that very government
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are not keen. And I don't think they're bad people. I don't think the people in the Labour
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government necessarily were bad people. So the question is, why? Is it because we just care more
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about importing cheap labour to staff, the NHS? And so the other departments are like, well, if you do
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this, we're not getting enough foreign students, we're not going to have enough of an economic boost.
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That is effectively the wall of the character of the resistance I came up against. So the economic
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departments, mainly the Treasury would be very resistant to my proposals to cut net migration.
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So for example, on workers, you know, my proposal for over a year was we needed to raise the salary
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threshold. It was 20, 25,000. That's below the average salary in the UK. It should have been
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I put forward 40,000. There was a huge mountain of resistance that I was met with from the Treasury
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itself. You know, it was reported at the time that I was having to chase the Chancellor of the Exchequer
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Jeremy Hunt down the corridor in my efforts to persuade him and sit him down to have the discussion.
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That was true. That did happen. That illustrates that ministers didn't want to talk about this because
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there was a prevailing Treasury orthodoxy that set out the view that more people coming into the country
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was necessarily good for the economy. I dispute that view. But that is the view of the OBR, was the view
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of the OBR traditionally. They might have been softening that view recently. But generally speaking,
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the economic departments work on the basis that more people, more economic units coming into the
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country can only be good for growth. But the issue is with that, whether you agree or disagree with that,
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it's kind of irrelevant, isn't it? Because the people voted to lower immigration.
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Therefore, that's something that the government should have done, really. Do you see what I mean?
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I agree with you, because there's a real problem with the levels of migration that we are carrying
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at the moment. One, there's no mandate for it. And we're doing categorically what the British people
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do not want. Secondly, it's imposing undue burden on our public services, whether it's the NHS,
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whether it's school places, or whether it's on housing supply. Thirdly, it depresses wages.
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You know, we know that more people coming into this country are taking jobs at lower levels,
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at lower wages. And really, what we need employers to do is raise wages. So we create that high-skilled,
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high-wage economy. And lastly, I think the pace of migration is causing real damage to community
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cohesion and the social fabric of our country. Because people are coming from countries where
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their culture is sometimes at odds with British values and British culture. And I think we are
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seeing that play out in a very worrying way on our streets. But this is only going to get worse in
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What do you mean by that, Suella? You've just made that comment. I think I know what you mean,
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I mean that if you take a hard, honest look at our country, we have towns and cities around the
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United Kingdom where multiculturalism has failed, where communities are living parallel lives,
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where people come here and they don't speak the language, where they come here and they don't
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want to take part in British life. They don't want to integrate. And in fact, they actively loathe
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what Britain stands for. And they are in Britain, but not of Britain. And I think that's very,
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that's something we need to talk about and we need to face up to, because I think that's
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that's going to pose, it's already posing real issues with community cohesion, unifying our
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country at a time when we desperately need unity, and actually trying to heal some of the divisions
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Because that, I can't believe that that is a taboo topic. Is it that they're just simply worried
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about being called a racist, a bigot? Is that what's going on here with people refusing to comment
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on it or address the subject? I think that there is an element of that. I think many politicians
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don't like talking about cultural challenges. They don't like saying that certain communities
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are not signing up to the British way of life out of fear of being called racist. And it's that,
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that, you know, that readiness generally by the left to jump on anyone who might utter something
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like that and call them a racist, a bigot, a xenophobe has a real chilling effect. And I think that
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many politicians would rather just avoid the subject.
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Because you experienced that when you were Home Secretary. Now, people can say the language that
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you use could have been described as inflammatory when you were talking about illegal immigration.
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But to compare it to 1930s Germany, as I think Gary Lineker did, is quite frankly,
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demented as somebody whose mother is an immigrant, first generation immigrant herself.
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Yes, that's an example of the hysterical reaction that people get when they're raising very reasonable
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and necessary issues which go to the heart of what it means to be British. And if people are going to react
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like that every time someone tries to grapple with this subject or be in a sensitive way, we're not going
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to get very far. And we're not going to solve the problem that is patently there.
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Okay, let's talk about another aspect of this issue. Because, okay, I hear the argument we need
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immigrants to come in, do the jobs, therefore the economy. I think that's incredibly dangerous,
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by the way, for your party to be doing. Because if you make it clear to the British public that there's
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no democracy, I can't vote to achieve the result that I want. Why would I support, A, your party,
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and B, democracy as a principle? I really think that's a serious danger that we're dealing with
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here. But at least I understand the rationale. If you're the head of a department that needs workers
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or whatever, you will push for that. I get it. Why on earth are tens of thousands of people coming
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into this country every year illegally? That can't be beneficial to this country, even economically.
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Even on that argument, that doesn't make any sense. Why is that happening?
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Well, on illegal migration, we have a real problem with controlling our borders,
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I'm afraid. And the simple fact is we are not in control of our southern border on the south coast,
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because at the moment it is being exploited by tens of thousands of illegal arrivals every year.
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That is undermining our public safety. It's undermining our border control. It's undermining our
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national security as well. Why have we not managed to fix it? The reason we've not managed to fix it
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is because we've not been able to deliver our policy of deterrence. We've not been able to deliver our
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policy of deterrence, i.e. Rwanda, because plainly speaking, the interference of a politicized and
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interventionist court in Strasbourg, namely the European Court of Human Rights, and its application
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of the European Convention on Human Rights. So the simple answer is we've not been able to control our
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borders because of an elastic and disproportionate interpretation of human rights laws.
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But I didn't vote for the court in Strasbourg, and neither did the British people.
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So why don't we leave? Why don't we leave the convention? Why don't we? I mean, look,
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maybe I'm not a political expert, but I generally had the idea that democracy meant that the people of
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this country get to vote for the way that this country is run. I don't know anyone who's in favour of
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illegal immigration, including many of my friends on the left. Nobody wants this, and somehow we're
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still clinging to a policy or a court or whatever that makes us do things that none of us want. How
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is this possible? Well, we are a member. We are a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights.
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We are a member of the Council of Europe, the institution that governs the convention. And we are
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subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. We've signed up legally and
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constitutionally to all of that institutional framework. So at the moment, we have to abide
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by it. My view is we've reached the point now, particularly because of the impediment that it
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poses to our controlling of the borders, but also on many other policy areas, actually,
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it's now time to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
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Well, unfortunately, I was a lone voice advocating that around the cabinet table. And the reality of
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working in government is even if you're Home Secretary, you cannot act unilaterally. You do
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need collective agreement. You do need the support of mainly the Prime Minister and ideally the majority
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of your cabinet and ministerial colleagues before you do anything. So that is unfortunately why we've not
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been able to stop the boats. That's also actually why we've not been able to take action soon enough
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on legal migration. I didn't have collective agreement. I didn't have the support of the Prime Minister.
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I apologise if I'm asking stupid questions, but what is the rationale for your cabinet colleagues
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to not want to do this? I don't understand.
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Well, their argument is that it's far too radical. It would put us in the same category as Russia and
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Belarus, who have left the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, and it would be
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damaging to our international reputation. Can we not have our own code that makes sure that we are
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protecting the human rights of people in these situations, but in a way that the British public approve of?
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Well, that would be my proposal. We leave the European Convention on Human Rights and in doing so
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complete the job of Brexit. That would enable us to take back control of our laws and our borders.
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We leave the jurisdiction of the foreign courts, which is politicised and interventionist, and we
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actually design and deliver our own Bill of Rights here in the United Kingdom by the UK Parliament with a
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mandate from the UK population and which is applied by UK judges in UK courts. That, I believe, is a much
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better and legitimate way of protecting people's rights and civil liberties, which I care passionately
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about, but also enabling democratically elected politicians to be held to account on their decisions.
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So, Ella, wouldn't you say, and look, push back on this if you will, the average person on the street
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who voted for Brexit, which obviously the majority of people in this country did, would be like,
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oh, do we even have Brexit if we can't control our borders because a court in Strasbourg
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tells us that we can't? Is that Brexit? It doesn't sound like it to me.
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I think the European Convention on Human Rights was left untouched when we left the European Union.
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They are two distinct and separate entities. And so a lot of people will have assumed that we left the
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Convention, that we left the Strasbourg Court when we left the European Union. That was not the case.
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And actually, that's why I feel very passionate that we do need to now leave the Convention on
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Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, because it will actually complete the job
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of Brexit. It will restore supremacy to the UK Parliament. We will be able to control our borders.
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We will be able to control our laws. And we won't be governed by a foreign court.
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And those were the arguments behind Brexit. And so, you know, I think there's a very compelling
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argument for departure from the Convention on Human Rights.
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Because to me, again, and I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an expert in human rights. But when I see a
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country that is unable to police and protect its borders, what it says to me is that we're not in
00:26:58.800
charge of our own destiny in any shape or form. Because if you can't even protect something as
00:27:03.040
basic as your own borders, how are you in control of your destiny? And the reality is, for me,
00:27:11.200
I think there's something in that, because ultimately, the situation we have when it comes
00:27:16.720
to border control is that an asylum seeker can come to the UK illegally, and they can claim human
00:27:25.440
rights protections based on a whole range of things, whether that's, as we saw tragically recently, false
00:27:33.040
claims that they may have converted from Islam to Christianity, claims that they may have a family
00:27:38.720
member in the UK, claims that they might be a political dissident of the Iranian regime and
00:27:46.800
therefore to be returned there would be harmful to their welfare. All of those kinds of claims
00:27:54.960
claims enable them to plead human rights in a way that trumps the human rights of the British
0.91
00:28:02.400
people to live in a country where their borders are secure. All of those kinds of claims allow
00:28:10.640
foreign criminals to claim their human rights in a way that prevails over the human rights of victims
0.99
00:28:18.400
and the British people to live in a safe country. I think that balance is totally out of kilter.
00:28:24.000
And that's why, despite trying to fix the problem within the framework for decades,
00:28:30.000
it's now time to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
00:28:32.240
Because you just touched on it very briefly there, which is a case of Abdulazidi, somebody who was an
00:28:38.240
illegal immigrant into this country, who then committed a heinous attack against a woman and
00:28:44.480
her children using a corrosive substance. And you, me and everybody else is thinking to themselves,
00:28:52.720
why are you even here? You should have been ejected at the, and he was a sex offender on top of that.
00:28:59.920
And granted asylum after he committed a sex offender. I mean, how does that happen?
00:29:04.880
Really shocking. But what would have happened is that he would have claimed human rights protections,
00:29:12.880
whether that's under the Refugee Convention, which is another international document to which we're
00:29:17.360
subject, or the European Convention on Human Rights. He would have claimed, well, I'm a Christian.
00:29:23.040
I'm a Christian now. And because of my God-fearing, devout Christianity, you cannot send me back to
00:29:33.840
my country of origin because I will be persecuted. Because Christians in my Muslim country of origin
00:29:41.200
are tortured. And he would have claimed that. And he would have done that, you know, pretty easily.
00:29:49.280
It's quite, it's quite easy in this country to claim human rights and for judges to uphold the
00:29:56.480
human rights of foreign criminals, illegal migrants, and people who really shouldn't be here.
0.98
00:30:02.080
So Ella, let me ask you a question. I know that there's a lot of politicking around this going on,
00:30:08.480
but how does this get fixed? It's no secret that I think, you know, you've made a couple of digs at
00:30:14.080
the prime minister. It's no secret that I'm sure you'd like to be leader one day to implement your
00:30:19.600
vision of the direction this country should go in. But if you can't even get a cabinet to agree to
00:30:25.680
deal with this issue, even if you were elected as leader of the Conservative Party at some point,
00:30:30.720
and even if you led a government, how, if your party doesn't support the idea of stopping this
00:30:36.720
by leaving the ETH, how is this going to get fixed? Well, I mean, I think if we take legal
00:30:44.160
migration, for example, you know, whilst in government, I was able to persuade the prime
00:30:50.560
minister to take some measures, some minimal measures on students and the dependence on
00:30:55.680
students. Because a large number of the people coming into this country are not actually workers,
0.70
00:31:00.560
they're actually the dependence of workers or the dependence of students. The foreign students
0.82
00:31:06.960
community has skyrocketed in the last few years alone. And when I left office,
00:31:14.080
the prime minister then did announce another package of measures on workers. So he decided to raise the
00:31:20.240
salary threshold. There's a, there's a few other measures on dependence of workers. And I think that
00:31:27.200
change can be achieved by being vocal about what the British people really want. You know, I found that
00:31:36.320
actually, I can achieve more outside government than within government, because I can speak freely.
00:31:41.600
I was unable to argue the case forcefully with public support from within government. When I was outside
00:31:51.440
government, I was able to make the case much more powerfully in public, with a lot of public support.
00:31:59.360
And on that basis, I think the government had to had to respond. Also, given the numbers of 700,000,
00:32:07.440
which were unprecedented, and extremely high. And by the way, I'll be honest with you, it will sound to
00:32:12.560
people, people who are not familiar with our channel, like we're two remain voters, Francis,
00:32:18.080
second generation immigrant through his mother, I'm a first generation immigrant, you're a descendant
00:32:22.640
of immigrants. I actually don't think the British public are against immigration, it's never been
00:32:26.800
my experience. When I came to this country in 1995, I think 3% of the British public thought that
00:32:32.480
immigration was a major issue, because it was in the tens of thousands, it wasn't that big a deal,
00:32:37.120
it wasn't disruptive to the country. But I tell you now, and I can, from speaking to lots of people,
00:32:42.080
if the government and this country and the people who run it carry on down this path,
00:32:46.480
we will get to a point where people are anti-immigration, if this carries on.
00:32:50.880
That's why it's the job of the Conservative Party, moderate centre-right party, to actually
00:32:55.760
deal with this in a sensible and pragmatic way. If we don't, then it will give rise to more
00:33:01.840
far-right sentiments, and people will take a more hostile view towards immigration. You're absolutely
00:33:06.480
right. I'm not against immigration. My own heritage bears that out. But also,
00:33:13.040
we're a richer country because people come here and they want to contribute to our economy and take
1.00
00:33:18.000
part in our country. But we need to also do it in a way that recognises we have finite resources,
00:33:24.960
and we cannot welcome everybody who wants to come to this country. That is the simple truth. And so we
1.00
00:33:32.320
need a regime that enables some control. And if you just take one aspect, on international students,
00:33:41.040
as I said, the number has exponentially grown in recent years. And it's become a backdoor route
00:33:49.120
into the UK, whereby instead of getting the most talented or the best and the brightest brains from
00:33:55.680
around the globe to come to this country, it's turned into a route for low-grade universities to
00:34:03.120
accept poorly qualified people, largely from developing countries, to come into this country to do
1.00
00:34:10.560
low-grade courses. The most popular course is a short business studies course in a low-ranking
00:34:17.120
university. They'll generally bring their partner, their spouse with them, and they won't bother to attend.
00:34:26.640
No one will enforce their attendance or check whether they're actually studying for this qualification.
00:34:32.400
And they will disappear into the black market, in the delivery market, and work on the black market
0.97
00:34:38.560
illegally. And then they will aim to stay here. Because earning in this country, even on a low-paid job,
0.97
00:34:45.680
can be far higher than many countries pay. And so that's why we've seen a lot of, you know, remittances
00:34:53.360
and money transfer companies expand, because people are sending money back to their countries of origin.
00:35:01.600
The universities, the foreign students issue, I believe, has become a racket, whereby a large number
0.99
00:35:12.160
of universities are selling immigration, not education. And I'm afraid we do need to take
1.00
00:35:18.160
meaningful steps to stop that. And I've put forward proposals, they've not been accepted,
00:35:24.400
but I will still keep arguing for the necessary steps that need to be taken to clamp down on this back
00:35:33.840
Isn't that just a form of corruption, to be brutally honest with you? You know that these,
00:35:39.760
not you, but these universities know what is going on. They can see from their enrolments,
00:35:45.040
the people who turn up, they come over, they enrol, and then after one or two classes they drop out,
00:35:50.480
there's a consistent theme right the way through. They know what's going on, don't they?
00:35:55.520
I'm afraid a lot of these universities are complicit in what has become a money-making scheme. And the
00:36:01.520
way it works is that these, you know, universities, which are not very good, will make their money
00:36:08.640
through foreign students. That's their source of revenue. So they will jealously guard this
0.72
00:36:14.480
source of income. They don't really care what happens once people arrive. And, you know,
00:36:21.440
many of the students will not attend, will not complete, and will go off and work. We also know
00:36:26.880
of some universities paying agents to go and recruit overseas to recruit students and offer them
00:36:34.880
false documentation, false qualifications, so that they can meet the entry requirements.
00:36:40.240
We've seen a lot of abuse of the system, and that's why it's necessary to rein it in and take
00:36:46.720
necessary. Take the care worker visa. I'm afraid that's also become a route of abuse in our immigration
0.97
00:36:54.080
system. We've seen countless examples where people will come here to the UK on a care workers visa only
00:37:02.720
for it to be discovered that there's no care home which is actually employing them. They don't have the
00:37:09.520
necessary qualifications to be looking after the vulnerable people who they're supposed to be looking
0.79
00:37:13.920
after. And it's been a sham. And again, it's being exploited as a backdoor into the UK. So tighter
00:37:21.120
enforcement is required. I started this work when I was Home Secretary, but it needs to be amplified
00:37:28.480
considerably if we are to properly get a grip on what's become abuse of our immigration rules.
00:37:35.520
And moving on now, obviously being Home Secretary, one of your remits was the police force.
00:37:40.800
And as somebody who has lived in this city for the majority of their life is a Londoner,
00:37:47.920
it seems to me that law and order in the capital city, but also across the UK,
00:37:55.200
we're in a bad place, aren't we, to put it bluntly? When you look at things like knife crime in particular.
00:38:02.000
Sure. There are many challenges. Having served as Home Secretary, I worked very closely with the police.
00:38:10.080
And even to this day, I am fiercely pro-police. And I hope my track record reflects that. I fought for
00:38:21.280
greater powers for the police to make their jobs easier when it comes to using stop and search or
00:38:27.440
arresting militant protesters. We passed a new law specifically to make their jobs easier.
00:38:34.240
I fought for higher pay. We secured one of the highest pay settlements for the police,
00:38:41.600
even accounting for the difficult fiscal environment. I went in to bat for the police,
00:38:46.720
because I thought that, you know, the police can't strike. The police make huge sacrifice. You know,
00:38:52.080
I've met loads of both rank and file and also senior police officers, retired police officers,
00:38:59.680
new recruits. And I was always blown away by the level of dedication and the bravery,
00:39:06.880
bravery that frankly, you or I would never be able to appreciate. And there are countless stories that I
00:39:14.160
came across of remarkable bravery, remarkable boldness, courage and effectiveness that will never be on
00:39:22.480
the front pages. And most, the vast majority of police officers have that in their blood. They sign up to
00:39:28.960
do this work, which is really hard work because they're brave people and because they want to keep
00:39:33.680
people safe and they want to serve the country. That's all incredibly admirable. So, you know, I think
00:39:42.240
there is a lot of good. There's a lot of good in our police force. I also fought for more police officers.
00:39:47.680
We recruited the highest ever number on record in terms of police officers on my watch. So,
00:39:56.000
there is a lot of good. I'm also proud of our track record over the last decade. You know, we've got a record
00:40:02.160
number of police officers. We've also actually seen a fall in crime overall. I know it might not feel that way,
00:40:08.080
but if you compare on a like-for-like basis over the last decade, crime overall has fallen by about 50%.
00:40:14.320
So, you say it might not feel that way. Why doesn't it feel that way then?
00:40:17.200
So, those are all the good things. And being dispassionate.
00:40:21.280
And by the way, just so you know, we've had police officers on the show. Anytime I meet an officer
00:40:26.080
or someone who serves in armed forces, I always thank them for the service. Difficult job,
00:40:30.320
and they deserve utter respect. But it is also true that the experience of the ordinary person
00:40:36.000
on the ground is your car gets broken into, you get a crime reference number for your insurance.
00:40:41.120
That's about it. Right. So, why doesn't it feel like we are safer?
00:40:46.560
Yeah. So, that was what I really came to grapple with as Home Secretary. That despite those,
00:40:54.000
you know, the good things, people don't feel safer. Public confidence is very low in the police. People
00:41:01.280
feel that there's no point calling the police now. It's actually got to that point. And so,
00:41:07.440
I was very interested in what we needed to do to restore trust and rebuild confidence. And the reason
00:41:17.280
why I believe it's got to that position is because I think there's been a disproportionate focus
00:41:25.200
on higher harm crimes, which is, you know, important and necessary, but to the detriment of,
00:41:34.480
you know, I hesitate with using this term because it's, but lower harm, because there's no such thing
00:41:40.400
as lower harm, but lower harm crimes. So, the antisocial behaviour, the criminal damage,
00:41:46.480
the vandalism, the robberies, I mean, they can be very serious harm, burglary, the kind of everyday
00:41:54.320
crime. I do feel that, to a degree, resource has been diverted away from those kinds of crimes.
00:42:00.480
To what? To what kinds of crimes? To higher harm crimes. Like what?
00:42:03.760
Like serious organised crime, violence against women and girls, rape, serious sexual offences,
00:42:11.600
homicide and other violent kind of crime. My job was, I wanted to try and pivot the police and their
00:42:19.760
resource to focus on that crime, which most people will come into contact with and actually reflects
00:42:26.720
the efficacy of their service. And that's why we set out an antisocial behaviour action plan.
00:42:31.680
That's why I made it easier for them to use stop and search powers. I constantly told the police,
00:42:37.680
I really want you to use stop and search. I want you to say, it's one of the best ways of saving lives
00:42:43.120
on the streets. We increase their resources for this kind of crime. So I think there's an issue on
00:42:51.520
resources and how resources have been used. I think secondly, there has also been in some quarters of the
00:42:58.080
police, you know, an issue with politicisation. And I think that has been one of the reasons why there's
00:43:08.960
been operational resistance to take particular decisions. And we've seen that play out on the
00:43:15.200
ground. And so what you're talking about is police painted rainbow colours, people getting arrested
00:43:20.800
for tweets while burglaries go on uninvestigated. Yeah, that sums it up. That doesn't seem to make
00:43:27.600
much sense to the ordinary person, that sort of approach. Yeah, exactly. But the thing is,
00:43:31.840
what I struggle with is given the type of people that go into policing, I can't imagine there's,
00:43:37.840
you know, a senior police officer who's gone into it to repaint the cars and do all of this
00:43:44.560
arresting people. Like, where's that coming from? So you're right, it's not the rank and file.
00:43:50.080
I don't imagine it is, no. If you talk to the vast majority. Exactly. And that's what I always
00:43:55.040
made a point of. I always wanted to meet lower ranking officers and people who weren't necessarily
00:44:01.360
in the leadership positions. And they were very frank with their views to me. And they really resented
00:44:07.280
some of the positions adopted by police chiefs and those in leadership roles. They said it didn't
00:44:17.360
represent them. It wasn't what they signed up for. And it didn't reflect policing. And so the kind of
00:44:24.480
things I became concerned about were, you know, the police taking the knee during the BLM marches,
00:44:32.240
a total expression of a political stance which was unacceptable. Even when you, particularly when
00:44:40.560
you consider that BLM stands for defunding the police. Getting into debates on transgender
00:44:50.000
rights and gender ideology. Some of that can have very, you know, damaging consequences for the safety
00:44:57.280
of women. For example, that's played out in some policies that the police have rolled out,
1.00
00:45:03.120
now withdrawn actually because there's been an outcry on the ability of trans women police officers
00:45:11.920
being able to strip search biologically female suspects. I think that's totally abhorrent and
00:45:22.720
And the police's guidance said that was permissible. That's an, that's a consequence.
00:45:27.920
Do you have to pinch yourself, Suella? Do you have to pinch yourself when you, when you,
00:45:32.000
when you hear the leader? I mean, I, and I know this sets you up for an easy, easy way to have
00:45:36.240
a go at Keir Starmer. But, you know, when we've got this kind of situation, when we've got
00:45:40.320
a guy who's potentially the next prime minister saying he doesn't know what a woman, like all of this
00:45:44.240
stuff. Do you ever just go like, look around and go, am I in the Truman Show here?
00:45:49.440
Well, it's just more, um, it's terrifying. I'm actually very, uh, anxious about it when I hear
00:45:58.000
senior politicians, senior professionals coming out with these views, because it's not just,
00:46:03.200
you know, the culture war, which can get dismissed, but I think it's, it's incredibly
00:46:08.320
dangerous for our society because what it is, is it's, um, it, it, it's like, um, you know,
00:46:16.800
it's controlling what people should think and say and believe. People have been arrested for saying
00:46:24.320
a man can't be a woman, for, for stating the basic facts of biology. That then has a chilling effect
0.99
00:46:32.240
on freedom of speech, freedom of belief and freedom of thought, fundamental rights to a
00:46:37.920
democracy and a functioning society. And that is where we're getting into a dystopian Orwellian kind
00:46:45.680
of world where thought speak and the thought police are watching what you're saying and thinking. And I
00:46:54.240
am, you know, this is the tip of the iceberg and this is where it starts. And so I find it very
00:47:00.080
worrying, worrying. And that's why I feel very passionate about speaking up against it. Even
00:47:04.480
if I have to take flack and even if I, uh, get demonized for it, I will keep, keep, keep speaking
00:47:11.440
up for the truth because someone has to, and we have to all be brave. And this is what's so great
00:47:16.800
about your show. You are, you are truth tellers and you are courageous in this fight and we need more
00:47:22.480
people on the media to call out this madness. I'll tell you another damaging effect.
00:47:27.360
Let me, let me ask you something. I'm very happy to hear your criticism, but I think
00:47:31.280
one thing we ought to raise here very much in the spirit of truth seeking media is that
00:47:35.440
I think all of us believe in free speech. And there has been an issue with the pro-Palestine
00:47:40.560
protests or the protests against what's happening in Israel, where we also see people getting
00:47:45.600
increasingly punished for slogans, opinions they express and so on. Is there not a bit of a hypocrisy there
00:47:52.160
from, uh, people like us, people like you in terms of saying, well, you know, you can't express this
00:47:57.680
opinion because it's, you know, whatever, but, but these are opinions that must be protected and
00:48:03.520
people should be allowed to. Where's that line? So Ella, how do you draw that line?
00:48:07.280
Right. Well, I think that if we look at the policing of the protests, I think there has been,
00:48:13.600
um, you know, it's been a very difficult job for the police. There's been hundreds of thousands of people
00:48:18.240
parading on a regular basis. And frankly, the police have been outnumbered and notwithstanding
00:48:23.760
that they have made hundreds of arrests, but ultimately three months on, we have the Jewish
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00:48:29.920
community totally terrified and parts of our big cities have become no-go zones for members of our
00:48:38.400
society, law-abiding members of our society. Which areas are you talking about and which cities? What
00:48:46.000
are the no-go zones? I would say central London. Central London, approximately once a week now,
00:48:51.120
has become a no-go zone for Jewish people because the hateful marches are taking place as a regular
00:48:58.000
fixture in our diary. And, um, we've seen synagogues having to close. We've seen Jewish people intimidated
00:49:05.680
and harassed and attacked merely for being Jewish. Uh, now we've seen a member of parliament being
00:49:12.960
hounded out of office because of anti-Semitism, homophobia and racism.
00:49:20.160
And we all comment, but what is, what's happening here? These are all consequences
00:49:26.080
of the phenomenon of mass extremism on our streets. And that's what I believe these marches represented
00:49:32.160
in October. Um, widespread anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic chanting, hateful chanting, racism,
00:49:40.560
uh, the chanting of jihad, um, with the police standing by and not just not enforcing against
00:49:50.720
it, but actually coming out with a justification for it. That was a low point for me when I was
00:49:55.920
Home Secretary. Um, uh, an extremist actually having been found to be advising the Metropolitan
00:50:02.000
Police on their strategic board. Free! Free! Free! Free! Free! Free! What's going on is global
00:50:10.480
censorship by the Zionists. Global censorship to silence us. From the river to the sea!
1.00
00:50:18.240
Palestine will be free! The police telling the Jewish campaigners not to campaign with their boards,
0.91
00:50:30.160
with the pictures of the hostages, pulling down posters of the hostages. There was a double standard,
00:50:36.320
and I think that this needs to be called out. So when your question is about free speech, of course I will
00:50:43.520
protect the right to freedom of assembly, and to peaceful protest, and the right to free speech.
00:50:50.480
But when that crosses a line into hate speech, when it becomes racist speech, when it becomes incitement
00:50:58.320
or glorification of some of the most atrocious terrorist acts that we've seen in a generation,
00:51:04.880
that is where the criminal threshold is met, I believe, and where the police should have stepped in.
00:51:09.120
I mean, Suela, the police could quite, I think it's not a bad argument actually, to go, look,
00:51:15.760
there's literally thousands of people on this street, and we're having to police this, and there's
00:51:21.680
hundreds of them chanting whatever it is that they're chanting, an anti-Semitic chant. Do you
00:51:26.320
expect me to go and arrest all these hundreds of people? I can't do that. That is simply not practical.
00:51:31.760
And if you want me to do that, we need more police officers and we need more resources to make that happen.
00:51:36.720
Yeah, well, that is, and I would say to that, that is precisely what the police's job is,
00:51:42.160
to take on the mob, to take on the extremists. They are trained, and they are the professionals
00:51:52.160
designed and in place and paid to do that. And if it's about resource, we can fix that. And so I think
00:52:00.400
there's another problem here about police tactics. I think there has been a timidity on the part of the
00:52:06.240
police to take on the mob. You know, I think there's been a slight fear, a reticence, a reluctance
00:52:13.600
definitely to actually jump into the crowd. Yes, a calculation needs to be made. Is that going to
00:52:20.480
potentially cause a riot? But I do think that you need to equip the police with the right equipment,
00:52:27.440
the right tactics, the right resource. Many of these things they have within their possession,
00:52:32.640
and they are able to use these resources to enable better crowd control and to manage
00:52:42.080
hateful extremism on our streets. I think that we have to revisit police tactics of public protest
00:52:48.560
because something's not working. Do you think that failure to deal with the...
00:52:53.440
You know, look, we did a video. I went along to some of these protests recently. I didn't really
00:53:00.480
see anything. I mean, from the river to the sea is a debate we can have. But apart from that,
00:53:05.040
there was no hate. I'm sort of publicly from a Jewish background. Nobody was attacking me.
00:53:10.240
It didn't feel like I was in a hateful place on the recent ones. But we also have seen some terrible
00:53:16.160
things as part of these protests. Do you think the failure to stamp out that extremism right at the
00:53:21.920
beginning, the calls for jihad and all of that, and the police actually, as you say, making excuses,
00:53:27.120
encourage the extremists within those crowd to then come out week after week after week,
00:53:32.320
and they felt emboldened by that failure? Yes, I do. And I think, looking back,
00:53:38.560
a tougher approach should have been taken at the outset. When people were scaling scaffolding,
00:53:45.200
they were scaling war memorials. They were wearing masks. They were attacking other counter-protesters,
00:53:53.520
like Jewish people in the area. They were using flares and fireworks as weapons. There was violence,
0.99
00:54:02.000
and there was aggression. So I think that there's been... I think that reluctance has meant that this
00:54:07.920
has continued far longer than it would have. And there's been more people, and more intimidation,
00:54:14.160
and more anti-Semitism, which has effectively become normalised. And I think had a tougher
00:54:19.680
approach been taken, things might be different today. So for example, on Armistice Day, you know,
00:54:24.880
I believe that march should not have gone ahead on Armistice Day. There'd been many, many marches
00:54:30.800
in the run-up. There were going to be marches subsequently, I think on Armistice Day, a day of
00:54:37.120
deep reverence in Britain reflecting and remembering our war heroes. I think that march should not have
00:54:45.600
gone ahead. And I think there was a risk of violence. There was a risk of serious disruption.
00:54:52.800
I do think the police took the wrong decision on that. I do think there needs to be a change in the
00:54:58.240
law to allow a minister to make a decision like that when there is a disagreement. Because I do think that
00:55:04.560
that was the wrong thing to do. It provoked counter-protest. And there was ensuing disruption
00:55:12.560
on Whitehall. Let me ask you about that, because ultimately you're no longer Home Secretary, partly
00:55:18.720
because you made this very point. And you say it provoked counter-protest. You were accused of
00:55:23.840
provoking the counter-protest by making this point. People said the reason that these people came out,
00:55:28.880
most of them who I think were basically football hooligans who came out to protest against the
00:55:33.760
marches that they had seen previously, they were blamed on you. It was you that inflamed tensions.
00:55:39.280
It was you that incited them to come out. You were this heroine of these people. What do you make of
00:55:46.000
those accusations? Well, I mean, I think that's total nonsense because as Home Secretary, you know, I think
00:55:54.320
you've got a duty to speak up when there's an issue of particular salience relating to policing. And for
00:56:03.440
a Home Secretary to remain silent and not said anything, I think would have been unacceptable,
00:56:11.440
actually, during these marches. So as Home Secretary, I set out to support the police,
00:56:18.960
do everything within my power to make their lives easier and empower them and also speak up for the
00:56:27.520
British people as truthfully as I could. And I felt that there had been a failure overall in terms of
00:56:36.080
the approach that police had taken towards these marches, such that antisemitism has now reached
00:56:40.960
unprecedented levels. We have hundreds of thousands of people marching in a hateful way on a regular basis.
00:56:48.560
Now, I'm not saying that everybody on these marches is violent or a criminal. What I am saying is that
00:56:56.080
these marches have been, have cultivated this environment. And I think there are many people
00:57:04.640
who are involved in these marches, who attend these marches, who are causing a lot of the criminal
00:57:10.480
behaviour, the disruption, the antisemitism, the racism, the extremism. And I think that, you know,
00:57:16.640
we still see, we still see flags being waved, which are supportive of terrorist organisations.
00:57:24.480
We are seeing people glorify some of the events of October the 7th. I think that that is all horrific
00:57:32.240
and odious behaviour. And I do think that there needs to be a more robust approach taken by law enforcement
00:57:38.960
and ministers in terms of keeping, maintaining the peace and keeping public order within our country.
00:57:46.480
So, Ella, we're coming to the end of our interview. Thank you so much. Our final question is always
00:57:51.360
the same. What's the one thing that we should be talking about as a society that we're not?
00:57:55.680
Before Soella answers, make sure that once the interview is over, you head on over to our locals
00:58:01.600
page and the link is in the description to see this. The Labour Party is totally taken over
00:58:07.200
by extremists and Islamists. Do you want to be leader of the Conservative Party? Oh my goodness.
0.99
00:58:13.200
Don't give me a politician's answer, because we both know your party, to put it very bluntly, is screwed.
00:58:19.200
The one thing I think that we're not talking about, I think, is what is happening to the fabric of our
00:58:28.800
country. And I am very interested in demographic change caused by the pace of migration and the rapid
00:58:39.280
alteration of many towns and cities in our country. And why we need to start talking about why we are not
00:58:47.200
able to produce this cohesive society, which can unite behind a set of inspiring British values.
00:58:56.960
Why are we living in a country where there are ghettos? There are people who are not living and
1.00
00:59:05.200
subscribing to British values. Why do we have many people here who loathe our country and want to see
00:59:13.040
the destruction of Western civilisation? Why are the authorities appeasing this sentiment? Why are
00:59:19.840
they turning a blind eye to this kind of behaviour? And how do we empower our authorities, whether that's
00:59:26.160
the police, the universities, the councils, politicians, to be more courageous in standing up to extremism,
00:59:38.480
British values, I believe, are respect, the rule of law, democratic, a democratic society, fairness.
00:59:47.760
I think those are our monarchy, believing in having a level of patriotism and sense of unity. We're a
00:59:59.120
country, we are a multi-ethnic, a multi-faith country, but we also do need to ensure that minority groups
01:00:07.360
subscribe to a unifying view of what it is to be British and what's made this country great in the
01:00:14.160
past. And I think we need to revisit that and check whether that's working and what can be done to
01:00:21.120
improve it. Suella, thanks for coming on. Follow us over to Locals where we are, Suella, a few of your questions.
01:00:28.560
Quite a lot of people who historically have voted Conservative are simply not going to vote because
01:00:35.760
what's the point? How are you going to get people to vote, let alone vote for you, but a vote?