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Suella Braverman had no evidence for ‘fake gay asylum seekers’ claim [1]
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Date: 2023-11
Suella Braverman had no evidence for her claim that “many” people pretend to be gay in order to “game” the UK asylum system, the Home Office has been forced to admit.
The sacked former home secretary made the allegation in September as she sought to shore up support for her flagship policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. The plan was deemed unlawful in the Supreme Court earlier today in a rare reprieve for hundreds of people who had been threatened with offshoring before their claims were decided.
Braverman, a former attorney general, told ITV’s Anushka Asthana on 27 September: “People do game the system. They come to the UK. They purport to be homosexual in the effort to game our system – in the effort to get special treatment – and it’s not fair and it’s not right… I’m afraid we do see many instances where people purport to be gay when they’re not actually gay.”
Asked by openDemocracy for the evidence behind the then home secretary’s statement, her former department admitted it could not find any relevant information.
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Instead, in its response to a Freedom of Information request, it pointed us to more general public data about claims on the basis of sexuality, but said: “The statistics do not show the reason for refusal, and therefore the statistics do not separately identify refusals on the grounds of false claims.”
The Home Office has previously been accused of cruelty for its attempts to force LGBTQ+ asylum seekers to “prove” their sexuality.
Braverman was dramatically sacked on Monday morning, days after it emerged that her incendiary column in The Times – in which she alleged that London’s Metropolitan Police showed favouritism towards pro-Palestinian protesters – had not been signed off by the government before publication. The controversial article labelled protests against Israel’s bombing of Gaza as “hate” marches and called for them to be banned.
Her words were blamed for empowering a small far-right demo outside the Cenotaph on Armistice Day, resulting in dozens of arrests as violence broke out. A similar number were arrested when up to a million people marched through the capital hours later calling for an end to the bombardment of Gaza.
Meanwhile prime minister Rishi Sunak has declared his intention to put an emergency law before Parliament declaring Rwanda as safe.
Leila Zadeh, executive director of the LGBTQ+ asylum charity Rainbow Migration, told openDemocracy: “Granting people asylum saves lives. Many LGBTQI+ people that we support every day tell us how they faced life-threatening situations back home. For example, we have worked with Adams, who was violently attacked in the street on several occasions by members of his community in Ghana because he was bisexual, and his partner was killed. We also supported Miki, whose brother threatened to kill him when he came out as a gay man in Azerbaijan.
“Most of us welcome refugees. We have opened our hearts and homes to Ukrainians. The new home secretary needs to get in line with public sentiment and help people rebuild their lives here.”
Turning her ire on the former home secretary, Zadeh added: “With that comment, Braverman was seeking to distract from the fact that her policies have caused people to go through immense suffering.”
Braverman was replaced by James Cleverly two days ago in a reshuffle that was primarily noteworthy for the appointment of ex-PM David Cameron as foreign secretary. Cameron has not been an MP for seven years after quitting over the Brexit vote, and had to be made a baron so he could legally hold the office. It means he will sit in the Lords, with the ability to vote on British laws, for the rest of his life.
The Home Office said it was unable to comment on remarks made by the previous home secretary, and referred us to Braverman’s own office when asked if it would make any effort to correct the record.
Updated 16 November 2023: This article was amended to include a response from the Home Office.
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