Suella Braverman is right to take the UN to task on refugees

Suella Braverman is right. The United Nations Refugee Convention is no longer fit for purpose. As the Home Secretary will explain today in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, the convention makes a mockery of genuine refugees.  

‘Simply being gay, a woman or fearful of discrimination’ is enough to qualify for refugee status, Braverman will tell her audience. This means that 780 million are entitled to protection, a figure she describes as ‘absurd and unsustainable’. The Home Secretary wants the refugee convention, which was in her view an ‘incredible achievement’ when it was introduced in 1951, to be reformed because in its current guise it offers ‘huge incentives for illegal migration’.  

Braverman’s words are unlikely to go down well with the UN. Last year the organisation’s Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, criticised Britain’s plan to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda.