Home secretary Suella Braverman delivered remarks at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC on Tuesday, 26 September.
In comments that have been seized upon by her critics, Ms Braverman said that offering asylum to a person because they are gay, a woman or fearing discrimination in their home country is not sustainable.
Mrs Braverman said a worldwide poll by US analytics company Gallup found that 4% of adults who wanted to permanently leave their homeland – approximately 40 million people – had named Britain as their preferred destination.
Mrs Braverman also argued that the threshold for asylum has been steadily lowered since the UN Refugee Convention was ratified more than 70 years ago.
She questioned whether the 1951 accord is “fit for our modern age” and asked allied administrations to consider whether it is “in need of reform”.
Ms Braverman’s decision to call into question the UN accord comes against a backdrop of domestic struggles to control irregular migration numbers.
Her comments have been criticised by Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, who told The Independent: “Everything Braverman says is about a future leadership election. It’s a classic dog whistle to the Tory membership who are increasingly right-wing.”
“It’s shameful that we have a home secretary that’s prepared to play politics with people’s lives. She doesn’t seem to realise that simply being gay is enough to result in persecution or death in many countries.”
