Jane Clinton
Sunday December 18, 2022
Nimco Ali says Rishi Sunak should sack the home secretary, or risk losing the next election
Nimco Ali is stepping down from her role as the government’s adviser on tackling violence against women. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
An outgoing government adviser has criticised Suella Braverman for allegedly encouraging an increase in racism in Britain and “normalising” the politics of Nigel Farage.
Nimco Ali, who is stepping down from her role as the government’s adviser on tackling violence against women, added that Rishi Sunak should sack Braverman, warning that keeping her on as home secretary will see him lose the next election.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Ali, who was born in Somalia before moving to Britain as a child refugee, said of Braverman: “She’s basically feeding into this Nigel Farage stuff … and when you start to normalise these things it’s really hard to put it back in its box."When you have your home secretary speaking the way she is speaking and being cheered, that is problematic, especially when you’re the first man of colour to be prime minister.”
Ali, who is a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM), announced she was effectively quitting her government advisory role during a live radio broadcast, saying she was on a “completely different planet” from the home secretary.
She said that seeing the home secretary’s eyes “lighting up” while discussing deporting people from backgrounds not so different from her own, as well as Braverman’s “crazy rhetoric” during the summer, left her no choice but to quit her advisory role.
Ali, who is close friends with Carrie and Boris Johnson, said she saw clear links between this type of rhetoric and the repeated racist abuse she was subjected to during the 2020 Euro football tournament.
When asked if she thought Braverman’s language was helping to incite such racist incidents, she said: “100%. It’s legitimising it. When somebody like her says it, you think, you’re still talking about people of your own heritage to a certain extent but you’re also normalising the Nigel Farages.”
She said she could not understand the home secretary’s “ambition” to “put people on a flight to Rwanda and get rid of human rights”, adding that it made her anxious that Braverman, “a woman of colour”, could be comfortable with such a stance. She also accused Braverman of “vindictiveness” and a “lack of compassion”.
The Home Office has been approached for comment.
Ali also alleged that Dame Cressida Dick, then Metropolitan police commissioner, complained that the government’s initial response to Sarah Everard’s murder by the serving police officer Wayne Couzens had been “over the top”.
Dick’s first words in a high-level meeting chaired by Boris Johnson in March last year shortly after Everard’s murder were “this has been blown out of proportion”, Ali claimed.
The former Met commissioner has denied Ali’s claims. “I did not make those comments and it is not language I would ever use. I entirely supported every effort the government was making at that time, giving advice and taking action in the Met. Throughout my service, I sought to reduce violence against women and girls,” she told the Sunday Times.