Yesterday morning (04/11), Suella Braverman, home secretary of the United Kingdom was the source behind, yet another controversy, this time surrounding homeless people…
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Braverman branded sleeping rough as a ‘lifestyle choice.’ As if this wasn’t bad enough, creating a scapegoat out of the most vulnerable in society, she went one step further by blaming the brunt of the problem on ‘individuals from abroad.’
Suella Braverman On Homelessness:
‘We will always support those who are genuinely* homeless. But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.’
*(By ‘genuinely homeless’, does she mean ‘British’?)
In the tweet which has been widely critiqued on social media, Braverman outlined how she plans to crack down on the pitching of tents in urban areas, and went on to describe the growing numbers of rough sleepers on Britain’s high streets as ‘antisocial behaviour.’
‘What I want to stop, and what the law-abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress* to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities.’
*(Oh the irony… She wants to stop people causing ‘nuisance and distress’ to other people, and yet the Tories are the biggest cause of nuisance and distress in British society. Who’s going to stop them?!)
The fact of the matter is that the increase in homelessness has not come about because people are choosing to be homeless- despite what Braverman says, being homeless is NOT a lifestyle choice- it’s come about due to the cost of living crisis (a crisis whose sole responsibility lies in our government), meaning that people simply cannot afford anywhere to live…
With the cost of living crisis being at an all-time high, people can’t afford to pay their rent, and so evictions are rising, therefore forcing people onto the streets.
‘Even by this government’s standards, this is disgraceful. Imagine looking at the housing and homelessness crisis you’ve presided over and thinking, ‘let’s take away their tents’.
– Lisa Nandy, Labour frontbencher
Just like she did with asylum seekers- ‘fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for refugee protection’– Suella Braverman is, yet again, creating a scapegoat out of the most vulnerable members of society.
Give Suella Braverman a tent and force her into homelessness for a week, and let’s see, upon returning to the comfort of her £1.2 million family home, if she still believes that people would ‘choose’ to live like this…
Portfolio of Hope 