Joe Lycett has taken on home secretary Suella Braverman in a snark-filled open letter, after recent comments she made about LGBTQ+ migrants were met with a widespread backlash.
The Tory cabinet minister sparked outrage last week when she argued that “simply being gay” should not be enough to gain protection via asylum seeking for refugees, under international law.
Braverman alleged that there were “many instances” of asylum seekers attempting to “game the system” by pretending to be gay – despite Home Office figures indicating that sexual orientation was the basis of only 1% of asylum claims made in 2021 (as reported by The Independent).
Now, Joe – who is pansexual – has followed Sir Elton John in issuing his own takedown of Braverman’s speech, outlining a faux plan to deal with what he referred to as the “bum-bardment of immigrants” faced by the UK.
Joe posted his letter on X (formerly known as Twitter), alongside the caption: “FAO Suella Braverman.”
In the post, Joe joked: ”I was very interested to read your claim that asylum seekers are attempting to abuse the immigration system by pretending to be gays (sometimes known as batty boys). I too am disgusted by men pretending to be gay and think we should weed out this scourge from our society.
“I know, for example, that Alan Carr is actually married to a foul woman called Sandra, and that Rylan does triathlons.”
After outlining his (fake) plan for Braverman, Joe took one last swipe at the home secretary, writing: “Naysayers might froth that as the child of immigrants it seems strange that you would want to clamp down so ferociously on immigration, but I disagree with those woke likely-nonces: Just because you or your family have benefited from a system doesn’t mean that system should not be smashed to bits.”
Read Joe’s letter in full below:
Braverman, perhaps unsurprisingly, has yet to publicly respond to Joe’s comments. It was previously revealed that her original speech was signed off in advance by prime minister Rishi Sunak.
HuffPost has contacted Suella Braverman’s office for comment.
Throughout Liz Truss’ (brief) tenure as prime minister, Joe became known for providing regular commentary on social media as he ironically cheered her on from the sidelines in his own inimitable style.