Suella’s good work, undone

I must reassure my conservative friends that Suella Braverman’s good work this week is only undone in the eyes of inveterate pedants like me. So far, at any rate.

Other than that, the Home Secretary’s speech was impeccably conservative, which is to say sensible. So let’s have the good news first.

Mrs Braverman delivered the speech on uncontrolled immigration in Washington DC, going beyond parochial boundaries both geographically and substantively. An influx of millions of cultural aliens who don’t even try to integrate, she said, presents an existential threat to our whole civilisation.

If we eschew big words for a moment, essentially she said that, when untold millions arrive over here, over here will eventually become just like over there. If you seek proof, she added, just walk through the streets of Malmo, Paris, Brussels or Leicester.

She could have just as easily cited any other major city in Western Europe and North America, but I admire her self-restraint and sense of timing. A litany of the complete list of overrun cities would have kept her audience there for hours on end.

The present system, said Mrs Braverman, is unsustainable because it provides “huge incentives for illegal immigration”. Even huger ones for the legal kind, I’d suggest, for Western laws are way too generous to new arrivals.

Mrs Braverman estimated that 780 million denizens of downmarket countries could potentially qualify for refugee status in the West. I don’t know how she arrived at such a precise number, but it strikes me as too low.

She probably figured out that at least 10 per cent of the world population would be happy to swap over there for over here. I suspect the real proportion is closer to a third, but that’s nit-picking. Considering that the West has a combined population of about 1.4 billion, it’s reasonably clear that even Mrs Braverman’s lowish number couldn’t be accommodated.

Speaking specifically about the UK and the rest of Western Europe, Mrs Braverman took a richly deserved swipe at the European Convention on Human Rights. This is indeed the millstone sinking any attempt to solve the problem, although I’d be tempted to delve a bit deeper.

The ECHR is a product of the liberal, which is to say dominant, mindset in Europe. This mindset is ossified into a skeleton of orthodoxies, with each little bone having the sinews of stock demagoguery attached to it.

Hence anyone who dislikes the European Union is automatically demonised as a Europe-hating xenophobe (or a Little Englander in Britain). And those who insist that the ECHR damages the cause to which it’s ostensibly committed are accused of hating not only Europe but also human rights as such.

To her credit, Mrs Braverman came out swinging. “Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades,” she said.

And then: “If cultural change is too rapid and too big, then what was already there is diluted – eventually it will disappear.” Hear, hear.

So much for her good work. But then she undid much of it in my eyes with a single word, and I must admit I disagree with Shakespeare on the subject of a rose by any other name smelling as sweet.

That may be, but anyone who refers to a rose as a bicycle raises doubts about his literacy. If the person in question holds a Great Office of State, one is within one’s rights to question his, or in this case her, suitability for it.

Thus, when asked how she could reconcile her position with being a daughter of immigrants from Mauritius and Kenya, Mrs Braverman said:

“What you’re suggesting is because I’m the child of immigrants, I have to adopt a position which is pro-migration and pro the status quo, and I totally and fundamentally refute that.”

Just as totally and fundamentally I insist it’s shocking that our Home Secretary misuses a relatively common word with the blithe ease of a Millwall FC supporter. ‘Refute’, Mrs Braverman, means to prove something wrong, not simply to disagree, reject or deny.

I’m not suggesting that our politicians should all do a Churchill by being able to win the Nobel Prize for literature, but as a loyal British subject and reluctant taxpayer, I think I have a right to demand basic literacy from our governors.

Other than that, one can both detect some positive signs in current Tory politics and understand where they are coming from. Essentially, our Tory ministers have begun to make Tory noises, none too soon.

Their natural inclination these days is to win elections by out-Labouring Labour, but poll after poll shows that therein lie many years in opposition. Labour’s gigantic lead in every survey shows that the public would rather have socialism neat, not diluted with meaningless admixtures.

What the Tories have been diluting successfully is their core support, voters who for old times’ sake still believe that the word ‘Conservative’ in the party’s nomenclature should stand for something.

Realising this, our cabinet ministers, especially Mr Sunak and Mrs Braverman, have started to sound conservative on such vital issues as the economy, climate and immigration. Mrs Braverman also hints that in next year’s elections the Tories will target Labour’s soft stance on Europe.

Actually, it’s not so much soft as perfidious. Expertly prodded by the indescribably hideous Tony Blair, Labour grandees are transparently mapping out a strategy for re-entering the EU, on conditions vastly inferior to those of our erstwhile full membership.

Hence, and I hope you won’t think me too cynical, Mrs Braverman’s frequent jabs at the ECHR. By now I’ve become so jaded, not to say callused, that I simply don’t trust our politicians to do or say the right thing for any other than electoral reasons.

But at least they have indeed begun to say the right things, which beats the alternative any day. One can even harbour hopes that their words will be backed up by deeds, if only for the sake of politicking.

Speaking of ulterior motives, Mrs Braverman, whose current remit after all covers only domestic affairs, is clearly positioning herself as Tory leader-in-waiting. Hence her choice of an American venue for her big speech, and also her frequent references to the global nature of the migration problem.

Actually, I quite like her, considering other available options. I don’t discern any problems in Mrs Braverman that a crash course in English couldn’t fix. And really, when all is said and done, what’s the odd solecism among conservative friends?

P.S. Laurence Fox, actor turned GB News presenter, has caused a massive outburst of rage by saying on air that he wouldn’t “shag” the journalist Ava Evans. I demand he refute the invective by proving publicly that he would.