The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has described rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice” while defending her decision to restrict the use of tents by homeless people on the streets of Britain.
According to Whitehall insiders, Braverman plans to crack down on tents that cause a nuisance in urban areas such as high streets – amid growing numbers of rough sleepers and what the government considers a rise in antisocial behaviour.
The home secretary has also proposed the introduction of a civil offence, which could lead to charities being fined if they provide homeless people with tents, the Financial Times reported.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Braverman defended her proposals, saying: “The British people are compassionate. 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.
“Unless we step in now to stop this, British cities will go the way of places in the US like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where weak policies have led to an explosion of crime, drug-taking, and squalor.
Of course the going is only tough because the conservatives mismanage the economy. Which is hilarious in a kind of depressing way because they’re supposed to be the party that is all about the economy. They essentially believe in corporate self-regulation. If the corporations will regulate themselves then the government barely even need to exist.
That ideology seems to have gone out the window. Not that was ever any good but it did at least mean that they would probably leave minority groups alone, they wouldn’t be supported in any particular way, but then again no one was supported.
Of course at this point a minority group is anybody who doesn’t have six figures in their bank account