Braverman claims her speech saying multiculturalism has failed was ‘mischaracterised’ – UK politics live | Politics

The Conservative party has now released more details of what Steve Barclay, the health secretary, said in his speech this morning about new guidance intended to stop trans women being allowed on female-only wards in English hospitals. The party says it is “responding to concerns raised by patients and staff about biological men being allowed onto women’s hospital wards”.

In a news release it says:

Today, the health secretary announced a consultation will be launched this year to change the NHS Constitution for England to address growing concerns raised by both patients and staff about biological men being allowed onto women’s hospital wards.

The move will look to ensure that female- or male-only wards, are protected and that requests to have intimate care provided by someone of the same sex are respected.

The proposals will seek to enshrine rights and responsibilities in the key documents to better protect the privacy, dignity and safety of all patients, making clear that women’s concerns about where they receive care, and from who, must be respected.

In a further move to address patient concerns, the health secretary today confirmed sex-specific language has now been fully restored to online NHS advice pages about cervical and ovarian cancer and the menopause.

The Telegraph reported this initiative this morning as meaning trans women will definitely be banned from female-only wards. But Barclay was not as explicit as that in his speech, and he has just announced a consultation.

Mark Spencer, the farming minister, has denounced Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg as an attention seeker whose views on imported beef are wrong.

Yesterday Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, said he wanted to see hormone-injected beef imported from Australia.

Speaking at a Countryside Alliance event today, Spencer said:

So it helps Jacob’s profile doesn’t it. Jacob is the master of grabbing the headlines. But it doesn’t really add much to the debate and I think, it’s probably my job as a minister to explain to Jacob why that is wrong.

And actually backing UK farmers is better for the planet. It’s better for our economy. It’s actually better for our consumers as well, because we’re producing the top quality products here and we’re not going to allow the imports of hormone-fed beef from anywhere in the world.

Minette Batters, the president of the NFU, denounced the comments yesterday, saying Rees-Mogg was “morally bankrupt” because his policies would destroy British farming.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has said that comments from her in a speech last week criticising multiculturalism were “mischaracterised”.

Many Tories, including Rishi Sunak, have strongly defended multiculturalism since Braverman delivered her speech last week, and implicitly rejected her claim that it has failed.

But on a visit this morning Braverman said she was not claiming it had gone wrong everywhere. She was making a point about the need for integration, and explaining that in some places it was not happening, she said.

She said:

It’s my job, first and foremost, to be honest and speak for the majority of the British people.

And my comments have been somewhat mischaracterised.

We have so much to be proud of. We have a great multi-ethnic society and in many parts of our country integration has worked.

But there are also many towns and cities around the United Kingdom where it hasn’t and communities are living parallel lives.

They are coming from abroad, they are not learning the language. They’re not embracing British values, and they’re not taking part in British life. And that needs to be identified, we must be fearless in calling that out and that’s my job.

In her speech last week, which was interpreted in part as a move to boost her standing in a possible future leadership contest, Braverman did not include any of these qualifications, and instead described multiculturalism as “misguided” and “failed”. She said:

Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades.

I’m not the first to point this out. In 2010 Angela Merkel gave a speech in which she acknowledged that multi-culturalism “had utterly failed”.

The then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and British prime minister, David Cameron, echoed similar sentiments shortly thereafter.

Multiculturalism makes no demands of the incomer to integrate. It has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it. They could be in the society but not of the society.

And in extreme cases they could pursue lives aimed at undermining the stability and threatening the security of society.

This is not the first time Braverman has made far-reaching comments on race issues which have subsequently had to be qualified. After Braverman wrote an article for the Mail on Sunday claiming that child grooming gangs in the UK were “almost all British-Pakistani”, the paper was ordered by the press regulator, Ipso, to publish a correction saying that was not true.

Ben Quinn

Miriam Cates, the backbench MP who has become a favourite of her party’s social conservative wing, has been serving up what many of the grassroots seem to want to hear. Speaking at a fringe event called “Restoring Prosperity, Restoring Conservatism” organised by the Legatum Institute, she said:

I’ve mentioned the F word, family, and now to ensure I get coverage in the Guardian I’m going to mention the M word, marriage.

Cates also hit out at some favourite targets, earning laughs when she said that the Church of England should “stop interfering in politics” and adding:

Perhaps we could ask the Church of England to return to their day job and marry people for free.

The MP, who has amassed a tight-knit group of supporters and found a new spotlight when she delivered a keynote address at the National Conservatism conference, said that the family should be restored “as a building block of conservatism” if the party wanted to cut taxes and shrink the size of the state and create a new generation of young people with “skills and virtues to be economically productive”.

Nigel Farage has said that parts of the Conservative party are now like Ukip.

The former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party is attending the conference partly in his capacity as a GB News presenter. But he is also a popular figure with some Tories, and yesterday he was a prominent supporter in the audience as Liz Truss called for tax cuts at a rally.

In an interview with the Today programme broadcast this morning, Farage said the Conservative party was increasingly aligned with his views.

I’ve been very consistent with the things that I’ve said over quite a long time. I’ve never really shifted from those views, whether it’s regards borders, increasing population, attitudes below small business, net zero, taxes. What’s interesting is there’s now a wing of the Conservative party that has woken up to these things and they’re now saying them.

Asked if he could see himself joining the Conservative party, Farage replied:

Well, if you asked the delegates here, you might be surprised by the answer.

Farage also said he thought GB News would be influential in determining who gets to be the next leader of the Conservative party. Asked if the rightwing, populist channel might shape the next leadership contest, he replied: “I think that’s already beginning to happen.”

Last night Priti Patel, the former home secretary, paid lavish tribute to GB News at a party it was hosting. She said the country “needed a new disruptor when it came to the broadcast media, to take on the establishment, the Tory-hating, Brexit-bashing, free speech deniers at the BBC and the so-called mainstream media”.

Patel and Farage were later filmed dancing at the party to the tune of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (probably not a sentiment Guardian readers will feel as they ponder the footage).

Rishi Sunak is recording further interviews with broadcasters today. At some point he is bound to be asked to disown the Conservative candidate for London mayor, Susan Hall, who yesterday claimed that Jews in London were particularly afraid of Sadiq Khan, who is Muslim.

As Rachel Wearmouth reports for the New Statesman, Hall, a rightwinger who has supported Donald Trump in the past, said:

I live in north London and I know the wealth and joy of the [Jewish] community. But I tell you something else, I know how frightened some of the community is because of the divisive attitudes of Sadiq Khan.

One of the most important things we can do when I become mayor of London is make it safer for everybody, but particularly for our Jewish community, so I will ask for as much help as I can in London because we need to defeat him, particularly for our Jewish community.

Josh Gafson from Sky News has the clip.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews says this is a slur against Khan.

Throughout his tenure as Mayor,@SadiqKhan has treated our community with friendship & respect.

We hope to co-host the key Mayoral candidates at a 2024 Jewish hustings, where it will be clear that while London Jews may have varying political views, there is no fear present at all

And Labour politicians have strongly condemned the implicit Islamophobia in what Hall said. This is from David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary.

This is an ugly dog whistle, from a Tory politician who’s only strategy is to spread fear.

Sadiq Khan stands for all Londoners and has repeatedly fought antisemitism. Susan Hall should withdraw her statement immediately and apologise unreservedly

This is from Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary.

This is divisive and disgusting.

Sadiq Khan has repeatedly stood by London’s Jewish communities in the fight against antisemitism.

Susan Hall’s dog whistle politics have no place in London.

Will decent Conservatives ever call this out?

And this is from Margaret Hodge.

This dog-whistle politics is beneath us all.

Sadiq has been a loyal friend to the Jewish community, Jewish Labour MPs & @JewishLabour. He has always called out antisemitism, wherever it has reared.

If she had any integrity, Susan Hall would immediately retract her remarks

The Conservative peer and newspaper columnist Daniel Finkelstein has also criticised Hall.

I think Sunder is right. This claim about the Mayor is unfounded and a flatly wrong thing to say.

Nigel Farage has said that parts of the Conservative party are now like Ukip.

The former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party is attending the conference partly in his capacity as a GB News presenter. But he is also a popular figure with some Tories, and yesterday he was a prominent supporter in the audience as Liz Truss called for tax cuts at a rally.

In an interview with the Today programme broadcast this morning, Farage said the Conservative party was increasingly aligned with his views.

I’ve been very consistent with the things that I’ve said over quite a long time. I’ve never really shifted from those views, whether it’s regards borders, increasing population, attitudes towards below small business, net zero, taxes. What’s interesting is there’s now a wing of the Conservative party that has woken up to these things and they’re now saying them.

Asked if he could see himself joining the Conservative party, Farage replied:

Well, if you asked the delegates here, you might be surprised by the answer.

Farage also said he thought GB News would be influential in determining who gets to be the next leader of the Conservative party. Asked if the rightwing, populist channel might shape the next leadership contest, he replied: “I think that’s already beginning to happen.”

Last night Priti Patel, the former home secretary, paid lavish tribute to GB News at a party it was hosting. She said the country “needed a new disruptor when it came to the broadcast media, to take on the establishment, the Tory-hating, Brexit-bashing, free speech deniers at the BBC and the so-called mainstream media”.

Patel and Farage were later filmed dancing at the party to the tune of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (probably not a sentiment Guardian readers will feel as they ponder the footage).

Rishi Sunak is not particularly good at doing the personal stuff in interviews. On Sunday Laura Kuenssberg invited him to say something he admired about Keir Starmer, which was an invitation to him to say something generous (people like it when politicians are nice about their opponents), but instead Sunak just reverted to talking about himself and his leadership.

And this morning, in his Times Radio morning, Sunak was invited to say something about himself that people might not know but that might help people relate to him. Sunak could have talked about his dog, or playing cricket, but instead he assumed it was a question about being rich, and claimed that did not matter. He replied:

I think what people want from their prime ministers and their leaders is to do things that are going to make a difference to their lives.

I don’t think people are as interested in how much money is in my bank account. They’re interested in what I’m doing for them.

Yesterday Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak’s predecessor, staged a packed rally at the Tory conference, where she and three colleagues – Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dame Priti Patel and Ranil Jayawardena – made the case for immediate tax cuts.

At the event the host, the GB News presenter Liam Halligan, pointed out that there are now 60 Conservative MPs who back these ideas because they are members of her Conservative Growth Group. That was about the size of Rishi Sunak’s majority, he pointed out (the Commons says Sunak currently has a working majority of 60), and it meant that potentially they could vote down budget measures if they allied with the opposition. Aubrey Allegretti writes about that here.

In an interview with Times Radio this morning, Sunak was asked if he was worried about Truss having so much support. He replied:

No, not at all. Lots of Conservatives here. I think the mood is great. People are excited about the things we’re doing.

And then he claimed people were excited about announcements like his net zero changes, the new money for towns, the living wage increase and Jade’s law.

In an interview with Times Radio, in which he also refused to say what he would do about HS2, Rishi Sunak said that he had to reconsider the project because the costs had escalated “far beyond what anyone thought at the beginning”.

He said:

It’s clear that the costs of this programme has escalated far beyond what anyone thought at the beginning.

I know there’s lots of speculation on it, but what I would say is I’ll approach this in the same way I approach everything in this job, I will take the time to look at it properly, get across the detail and then decide what’s right for the country.

The sums involved are enormous and it’s right that the Prime Minister takes proper care over it.

It’s obviously not my money – it’s taxpayers’ money and we should make the right decisions on these things.

In his interview with BBC Breakfast this morning Rishi Sunak rejected claims that his handling of the HS2 decision had been poor. When it was put to him that delaying the decision meant this had been a “huge distraction” at conference, Sunak replied:

No, I don’t think that. Actually we’re having a great conference. The mood here is great.

And when it was put to him, again, that the HS2 story was overshadowing everything else at conference, and that this was a “mess” because all people were talking about at Manchester was the HS2 dithering, he replied:

I can tell you, because I’m at the conference, talking to all my MPs and everyone else, that’s not what they’re talking about.

What they’re talking about is our approach to net zero, which is saving their constituents £5,000, £10,000, £15,000 – an example of me making a long-term decision for the country, even when it’s not easy, even when I’m getting criticism, but because I believe it’s the right thing to do.

They’re talking about our backing of 55 towns across the country with long-term funding to help them change the destination of what’s happening around them.

They’re talking about what we’re doing today on Jade’s law. These are the things that people are talking about.

The Times this morning reports that Rishi Sunak is likely to announce his decision about HS2 in his conference speech tomorrow. The paper says that the Birmingham to Manchester leg will be axed, but that Sunak will go ahead with the six-mile link from Old Oak Common to Euston, in central London. At one point he was reportedly planning to axe this spur too, which would have resulted in HS2 terminating in north-west London, and the Birmingham to central London journey time being just as long as it is now.

Mhari Aurora from Sky News says No 10 sources have confirmed that the HS2 announcement will come in the speech tomorrow.

Good morning. Rishi Sunak has been doing a mini-interview round this morning, and not for the first time it has been dominated by him dodging questions about the future of HS2. For years to come this conference will serve as a case study for students of political spin who will try to work out why Sunak and his team went into this conference with this issue still lingering over it – neither resolved, nor decisively shelved until the autumn statement. No one in the press centre has a particularly good answer. Maybe some counter-intuitive, genius PR strategy is in play, but it feels more like old-fashioned cock-up.

In an interview with BBC Breakfast this morning, Sunak said he did not want to be “rushed” into a decision. Asked about HS2, he replied:

I know you want to keep asking, I know there’s lots of speculation, but all I can say is I’m not going to be forced into a premature decision because it’s good for someone’s TV programme. What I want to do is make the right decision for the country.

This is an enormous amount of people’s money, taxpayers’ money, billions and billions of pounds. We shouldn’t be rushed into things like that.

What people would expect from me is to take the time, go into it properly and make sure we make the right long term decision for the country. That’s what I’m interested in doing.

I think that’s what politicians should be doing. I think that’s what the country wants to see – people who make the right long-term decision, don’t take the easy way out, don’t chase the headlines. And that’s what I did with net zero.

The problem with Sunak saying that he should not be rushed is that all the reporting says the decision to scrap the link from Birmingham to Manchester has, in effect, already been taken.

I will post more from his interviews shortly.

Here is our overnight story on HS2.

And here is the agenda for the day.

11am: Steve Barclay, the health secretary, opens conference proceedings in the main hall. Other ministers speaking are Michelle Donelan, the science secretary, at 11.15am and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, at 11.30am.

12.30pm: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, speaks at a Centre for Policy Studies fringe event.

2pm: Theresa May, the former prime minister, speaks at a fringe event.

3pm: Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, opens afternoon proceedings in the hall. He is followed by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, at 3.15pm.

4.15pm: Gove and Lord Frost speak at a fringe event on the future of Conservatism.

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