Labour Deputy Leader Lucy Powell has defended government guidance teaching asylum seekers that rape, child abuse and violence against women are crimes, after Reform UK Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf condemned the posters in a video yesterday.
The Home Office published a series of taxpayer-funded posters aimed at asylum seekers, explaining that women are free to “earn their own money” and “make their own decisions about their lives”.
The guidance tells migrants not to make sexual remarks, whistle, make “kissing sounds”, follow women, block their path or abuse people because of their gender, religion or appearance.
It also explains that consent is needed “in every situation” - including within marriage or a relationship - and that sexual contact with a child under 16 is a serious crime.
“I genuinely cannot believe what I have just read,” Yusuf said in a video responding to the guidance.
He pointed to the section explaining that women can make their own decisions, as well as the warnings against harassment, domestic violence and sexual abuse.
But appearing on LBC, Labour’s Lucy Powell defended the posters as “pretty straightforward”.
“People coming from other countries do have different cultures,” she said, arguing that the government must be “absolutely clear” about the rule of law in Britain.
Last year, lawyers for two Afghan asylum seekers convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl pointed to “cultural differences” that supposedly meant they struggled with the concept of consent - though this was rejected by the judge.
Yusuf said the fact that the government believed such guidance was necessary spoke for itself. Needless to say, Britain should not be admitting people who need to be taught that women are not property, that rape is a crime and that children cannot consent to sex. Under a Reform government, “guidance” like this would not be needed, as undocumented, fighting-age men from cultures incompatible with our own would not be admitted into the country in the first place.
“They all need to be detained,” Yusuf said. “They need to be deported.”
The Home Office published a series of taxpayer-funded posters aimed at asylum seekers, explaining that women are free to “earn their own money” and “make their own decisions about their lives”.
The guidance tells migrants not to make sexual remarks, whistle, make “kissing sounds”, follow women, block their path or abuse people because of their gender, religion or appearance.
It also explains that consent is needed “in every situation” - including within marriage or a relationship - and that sexual contact with a child under 16 is a serious crime.
“I genuinely cannot believe what I have just read,” Yusuf said in a video responding to the guidance.
He pointed to the section explaining that women can make their own decisions, as well as the warnings against harassment, domestic violence and sexual abuse.
But appearing on LBC, Labour’s Lucy Powell defended the posters as “pretty straightforward”.
“People coming from other countries do have different cultures,” she said, arguing that the government must be “absolutely clear” about the rule of law in Britain.
Last year, lawyers for two Afghan asylum seekers convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl pointed to “cultural differences” that supposedly meant they struggled with the concept of consent - though this was rejected by the judge.
Yusuf said the fact that the government believed such guidance was necessary spoke for itself. Needless to say, Britain should not be admitting people who need to be taught that women are not property, that rape is a crime and that children cannot consent to sex. Under a Reform government, “guidance” like this would not be needed, as undocumented, fighting-age men from cultures incompatible with our own would not be admitted into the country in the first place.
“They all need to be detained,” Yusuf said. “They need to be deported.”
