Tory Home Secretary Suella Braverman shouldn't be an MP, let alone a Cabinet minister – Angus Robertson

Suella Braverman claims child-abuse grooming gangs are ‘almost all British-Pakistani’, even though a Home Office study found they were ‘most commonly white’

Once more, a frontbench Tory has been caught out. The Secretary of State in question, this time – and for the second time – is Suella Braverman, who has been caught speeding and then asking civil servants to arrange a private driver safety course so she didn’t have to do it with the general public. As a reminder, Ms Braverman previously had to resign because she sent an official document from her personal email to a fellow MP, in a serious breach of ministerial rules.

This is only the latest in a string of gaffes by the Tory frontbench. Notably, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak received a fine for his role in Partygate, and for not wearing a seatbelt while on the move in his ministerial car.

If wrongdoing is found on the Home Secretary’s part, of course, she should resign… again. However, Braverman showed herself worthy of resignation once more when she appeared at the National Conservatism conference. The conference is the epicentre of modern far-right thinking and featured speakers touting age-old prejudices and stereotypes. Braverman was quick to join in, falsely claiming that grooming gangs are “almost all British-Pakistani”.

Her own department’s research does not support this claim. A Home Office-commissioned study in 2020 said that "the academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending” and that “group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white”.

Along with a string of inhumane immigration policies, Braverman has demonstrated herself to be a callous and discriminatory Home Secretary who ought not to be a member of parliament, let alone a Cabinet minister.

Angus Robertson is the SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central and Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary