Suella Braverman was accused of “discriminating” against Albanians today by the country’s prime minister.
The extraordinary diplomatic row broke out on social media when the PM Edi Rama spoke out on Twitter.
He accused the British home secretary of using Albanians as an excuse for “policy failures’ surrounding the migrant crisis.
Rama slammed the British government’s “insane” and “easy rhetoric” of targeting his citizens for the UK’s border failures.
It comes after Braverman singled out Albanian asylum seekers after their numbers crossing the Channel in small boats increased.
Braverman has also been considering negotiating a “bespoke route” with the nation to get failed Albanian asylum seekers removed from the UK quicker.
“Targeting Albanians (as some shamefully did when fighting for Brexit) as the cause of Britain’s crime and border problems makes for easy rhetoric but ignores hard fact,” Rama said.
“Repeating the same things and expecting different results is insane (ask Einstein!).”
Rama argued that 70 per cent of the 140,000 Albanians who have moved to the UK were living in Italy and Greece, while 1,200 of them are business people, and that Albanians in the UK “work hard and pay tax”.
He said the UK should “fight the crime gangs of all nationalities and stop discriminating” against “Albanians to excuse policy failures”.
“Albania is not a rich country and was for a very long time a victim of empires, we never had our own,” Rama continued.
“We have a duty to fight crime at home and are doing so resolutely, as cooperating closely with others too. Ready to work closer with UK but facts are crucial. So is mutual respect.”