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.
People don’t want to learn or debate anything. They form an opinion and from that point on stop giving a shit. It’s no surprise things end up like this. Too many people are seriously close-minded and ignorant about things, yet their opinion is allowed to equally weighted to another who has put serious effort and thought into their decision. The way of thinking at large is just wrong. People are very short-sighted and easily fall for appeals to emotion instead of taking a second to think rationally. Voting Tory is reprehensible.