To listen to Suella Braverman, for the moment still home secretary, anyone would think that the south coast of Britain was being assaulted by Russian commandos or nefarious agents of Kim Jong-un in some latter day version of Operation Sealion.
Deploying the shocking ideas and repulsive imagery that has become her political leitmotif, Ms Braverman calls the arrival of unarmed, pitiful, bedraggled refugees on Border Force and RNLI boats an “invasion”. Ms Braverman was especially foolish to speak of invasion after a petrol bombed had attacked an asylum centre in Dover.
No doubt there are some potentially risky elements on board, given the apparent involvement of some Albanian crime gangs, but the descriptions of these people in certain sections of the media as “foot soldiers” being sent to meet their “generals” are as absurd as they are unhelpful.
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