Suella Braverman: Home secretary's 'racist rhetoric' defended by Fareham Borough Council leader

Councillor Sean Woodward has said he is ‘at one’ with home secretary and Fareham MP Suella Braverman after senior Conservatives criticised her use of ‘racially-charged language’.

Earlier this month the home secretary said that grooming gangs had a ‘predominance’ of ‘British Pakistani males’ despite the findings of a 2020 Home Office study, which labelled grooming gang perpetrators as ‘most commonly white’.

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Last November she attracted criticism after she described small boat crossing as an ‘invasion’. She later reasserted her stance after a holocaust survivor said it reminded her of the dehumanising language used to justify the murder of her family.

More recently the Fareham MP sparked a row by criticising the police for confiscating racist dolls displayed in a pub in Essex. Conservative peer and former co-chair of the party Baroness Warsi said Ms Braverman’s use of ‘racist rhetoric’ makes her ‘unfit’ to hold high office.

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood and chair of the defence selection committee said Braverman’s comments ‘do not sit well’ with the new approach ‘the prime minister is now injecting into Number 10 and is seeing us improve in the polls’.

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However, Cllr Woodward believes she ‘does not have a racist bone in her body’.

‘She is passionate about defending our country from illegal immigrants,’ he said.

‘Defence of the realm is the top priority of any government, or at least it should be. Her stance chimes well with the majority of the British public and her opponents, inside and outside the Conservative Party, don’t like it.

‘As for Suella’s language – those of us are passionate about what we do and what we think. That can show in our language and it is a far more genuine person that speaks frankly and openly about the issues and their cause rather than using language designed to offend nobody and ultimately achieve nothing.

‘Suella will go down in history, regardless of the outcome of her initiatives, as a Home Secretary who did her best to defend our country against those who would do us harm. And from the number of my own constituents to whom I speak on a daily basis, I can confirm that they agree with my views wholeheartedly.’