The loss of Britain's border controls

Suella Braverman has other charges to answer. But on migrants, she has touched a national chord

Migrants crossing the English Channel

Britain’s beleaguered Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has been widely excoriated — not least by her own Conservative colleagues — for using “inflammatory” language to describe Britain’s broken immigration system. 

In the House of Commons two days ago, she described the unstoppable tide of irregular migrants being trafficked across the English Channel as an “invasion” of the south coast.

This was considered particularly irresponsible, since at the weekend the Border Force immigration centre in Dover was fire-bombed by a man obsessed with illegal immigration.

The reaction to Braverman’s language, however, gets to the heart of why Britain has an immigration crisis in the first place.