Dame Priti Patel appeared to take aim at Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s migration speech as she suggested it may have been made to “get attention”.
The senior Conservative, who led the Home Office for three years during Boris Johnson’s premiership, said the public want to see results on the pledge of stopping small boats of migrants from crossing the Channel.
She said interventions such as speeches are “no substitute for action”.
The former home secretary also appeared to criticise Mrs Braverman’s comments on multiculturalism, saying integration in Britain by ethnic minorities is something to be “proud of”.
In a speech last week that has been criticised by the United Nations refugee agency and celebrities such as singer Sir Elton John, Mrs Braverman told a US audience that international treaties, such as the UN Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), should be reformed.
She argued their definitions of what an asylum seeker is needs to be tightened, saying discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for international refugee protection.
Asked on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News what she made of the speech, Dame Priti said: “I don’t know what the intention was around that – it might just be get attention, to have the dividing lines that previous commentators were mentioning as we go into the run-up to a general election.”
Watch the clip in full below:
