The parents of Suella Braverman left India for the UK in the 1960s. She has championed British colonialism as a politician and taken a tough stance towards immigrants.
The second senior cabinet minister to leave in the past week was Britain’s interior minister Suella Braverman, who announced her resignation on Wednesday.
While citing a “technical” violation of government policy in her resignation letter—sending an official document from her personal email account—Braverman also criticised Prime Minister Liz Truss, stating that she had “concerns about the course of this government.” Grant Shapps, who didn’t support Truss for the PM position and was fired as transport minister when she took office, will be the UK’s new interior minister.
With her recent remarks regarding Indian migrants overstaying their visas, Braverman recently threw a wrench in the works of the trade agreement between India and the UK. Later, in what appeared to be a course adjustment, she stated that “the stories of India and the UK are so closely connected that they are essentially the same story.”
Who is Ingrid Braverman
Braverman, a 42-year-old attorney and leader of the Conservative Party, was elected from Fairham to the UK Parliament in 2015 and held the office of attorney general for England and Wales from 2020 to 2022. She supported the Brexit movement and worked as a junior minister in Theresa May’s Brexit department, but she quit over her proposed Brexit plan because she felt it fell short of fully severing ties with the EU.
Earlier this year, Braverman was a front-runner in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister of the UK, but he was defeated in the second round. Along with Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, who was fired on October 14 under Truss, she was appointed interior minister in September.
In the 1960s, Braverman’s parents—her mother from Mauritius and her father from Kenya—migrated from India to the UK. Her father is of Goan origin, while her mother is of Hindu Tamil ancestry.
As a politician, Braverman has supported the deportation of immigrants to Rwanda while defending British colonialism. “Not only have we broken key promises that were made to our voters,” she wrote in her resignation letter, “but I have had serious concerns about this government’s commitment to honouring manifesto commitments, such as reducing overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migration, particularly the dangerous small boats crossings.”
She attributed the violence that occurred in Leicester after an India-Pakistan cricket match to unchecked immigration and the “failure of newcomers to integrate.”
What was Braverman’s opinion of India?
Early in October, Braverman expressed her concern that a trade agreement with India would increase immigration to the UK at a time when Indians already made up the largest group of visa overstayers in an interview with The Spectator magazine.
Given that I don’t believe that people who voted for Brexit intended an open-borders immigration policy with India, Braverman stated, She responded, “I do have some misgivings, regarding visa flexibility for students and businesspeople. Take a look at immigration in this country. The majority of overstayers are immigrants from India.
Even last year, we and the Indian government came to an agreement to promote and enable stronger cooperation in this area. It hasn’t always worked out nicely,” she continued.
A free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the UK is almost complete. It intends to boost bilateral trade, ease travel between the two nations, and lower tariffs on Scotch whisky imports into India. The agreement was supposed to be signed before Diwali, but the date has now been postponed, and Barverman’s remarks are thought to have played a part in that.
In an effort to contain the situation, Braverman stated on Tuesday that immigration from India has “profoundly benefited” the UK.
“Truthfully, the United Kingdom is better equipped after leaving the European Union (EU) to think critically, look beyond its borders, and value and cultivate ties with longtime allies like India. Because of the points-based immigration system, we no longer prioritise immigrants from Europe above those from other continents. At a Diwali event, she noted that almost 25% of all international students in the UK came from India.
India, on its part, claimed to have investigated each visa overstay complaint.
Braverman stated that she was “informed by the experience of my parents” and that she was “proud of the British Empire” in an interview with The Telegraph in June.
She claimed that her parents “had only positive things to say to me about the mother nation” because they “were born under the British Empire in the 1940s.”
This was “not to dismiss the horrific things that also happened because of the time period and cultural norms at that time,” the leader continued.