‘Are You Not Mortified?’ Dermot O’Leary Pushes Rishi Sunak On Immigration Rhetoric
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was pressed during an interview segment on Friday’s This Morning when host Dermot O’Leary asked whether he was “mortified” by Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s controversial immigration remarks at the Conservative Party conference this week.
During her speech Braverman ignited debate by suggesting that the West is set to face a “hurricane” of mass migration in the near future.
O’Leary, sitting beside his co-host Allison Hammond, began by stating that they were all children of immigrants before asking Sunak if he was “embarrassed and ashamed” by Braverman’s rhetoric.
“I think that this debate gets charged a lot where people focus on one thing,” Sunak said. “So, if you just take a step back, what do I think we all agree on? We all agree that Britain is an incredibly welcoming place… Immigrants can come here and do well… We haven’t failed in any way.”
“Are you not mortified?” O’Leary persisted.
“That’s destruction, that’s upheaval. It’s not a good word,” Hammond added.
Sunak continued: “There is an enormous sense of frustration that there are tens of thousands of people who have come here illegally over the past few years, and that’s not right. They are being exploited by criminal gangs. And that’s why I’ve said it’s got to be… the British people who decide who comes to our country and not criminal gangs. They are exploiting vulnerable people.”
However, O’Leary kept pushing the prime minister: “It’s this weaponising of the word that worries me. It’s demonising the people that come here in the first place. [Illegal immigration is] an issue, of course it is. It’s the incendiary use of that word that I think most people find unhelpful and harmful because it’s not the people who are coming here’s fault.”
Sunak tried again: “I think your viewers probably feel that there is an enormous sense of frustration that there are tens of thousands of people who have come here illegally over the past few years, and that’s not right. I think most people in their local community may now have a hotel that’s been put over to house illegal migrants that’s costing taxpayers.”
As the prime minister responds the hosts look to their notes before pivoting to quick fire questions, starting whether Sunak preferred Barbie or Oppenheimer. It’s a question he had less difficulty answering. Turns out he prefers Oppenheimer.
