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Trevor Phillips has accused Rishi Sunak of using “extreme” language on immigration after the prime minister claimed the UK risks being “overwhelmed” by foreigners.
The prime minister said that could “destroy” British democracy unless the government takes tough action to crack down on the issue.
He made his comments at a conservative political festival in Rome, where he also heaped praise on the Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Georgia Meloni.
On his Sky News programme this morning, Phillips asked deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden: “Does Rishi Sunak, son of east African Asians, really believe that immigrants are going to – as he put it yesterday – overwhelm us and destroy our democracy?”
Dowden said: “We do have to reassure people that we have got control of our borders, and we cannot have this unsustainable situation where we’re enriching people smugglers, the worst people on the Earth, through allowing this trade in human beings across the Channel.”
But Phillips hit back: “You know I’m not a nit-picker for language, but really ’immigrants are going to overwhelm us and destroy out democracy’?
″This is quite extreme language, isn’t it? If you hear that from your own prime minister and you are of an immigrant background, it’s not nice.”
John Walton – PA Images via Getty Images
The clash came after Sunak won backing from MPs for his emergency legislation which is designed to finally allow the government to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The prime minister is under huge pressure from the right of his party to bring down the numbers coming to the UK from abroad.
Figures revealed last month that net migration – the difference between those leaving and entering the country – hit 750,000 last year.
That is despite the last Tory election manifesto promising to bring immigration down below 226,000.
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