Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman has backed JD Vance's remarks on UK immigration, claiming "there's some truth to what he says" and suggesting it should serve as a "wake up call" for those in Government.
Speaking to GB News, Braverman said: "We are overwhelmingly dominated in our immigration system by low-wage, low-skill migrants who are actually costing the British taxpayer."
"I'd say that if you look in nearly every country, from Canada to the UK, that imported large amounts of cheap labour, you've seen productivity stagnate," he told attendees at a summit hosted by venture capitalist giant Andreessen Horowitz.
Suella Braverman has backed JD Vance's remarks on Britain's 'stagnated' state due to mass migration
GB News / Reuters
Discussing the remarks on GB News, Braverman stated that too many employers "have become complacent and reliant on cheap foreign labour."
"That's harming productivity, that's suppressing wages, and it's costing us in terms of our public spending," Braverman said.
Braverman revealed she had "exactly this debate within Government" during her time as Home Secretary.
"I was arguing with the Office for Budget Responsibility, I was arguing with the Treasury, I was arguing with the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at times," she said.
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US Vice President JD Vance has blamed immigration for Britain stagnatingREUTERSShe described a "prevailing orthodoxy within Whitehall departments that more immigration is good for the economy".
Braverman said she "fundamentally challenged" this view, pointing to economic evidence.
"For the decade of mass immigration, our GDP has been sluggish, our GDP per capita has been falling," she noted.
"On any economic metric, I would seriously challenge the view that more immigration is good for the economy. But that argument unfortunately fell on deaf ears."
Braverman told GB News that there is a 'prevailing orthodoxy within Whitehall departments that more immigration is good for the economy'
GB News
Vance also argued that the US had also been hooked on "cheap labour" for decades due to "40 years of failed economic policy".
He defended President Donald Trump's controversial use of tariffs, describing them as a "necessary tool to protect our jobs and out industries from other countries".
The vice-president insisted that tariffs, combined with advances in technology, would help America rebuild its manufacturing sector.
"When you erect a tariff wall around a critical industry like auto manufacturing and you combine that with advanced robotics and lower energy costs and other tools that increase the productivity of US labour, you give American workers a multiplying effect," he said.
