Britain’s most senior police officer has disclosed that police had investigated a number of “disgusting” and credible threats against the Duchess of Sussex.
Former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Neil Basu said that as head of counter terrorism, he had had to deal with a number of “disgusting and very real” threats from the “far right” against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“If you’d seen the stuff that was written and you were receiving it, the kind of rhetoric that’s online, if you don’t know what I know, you would feel under threat all of the time,” Mr Basu said.
Asked if there had been real threats to Meghan’s life, he replied: “Absolutely. We had teams investigating it. People have been prosecuted for those threats.”
Mr Basu also condemned the “horrific” speech being used by senior politicians of Asian heritage in relation to migrants.
Retiring after 30 years in the Met, Mr Basu said he believed his outspoken views had cost him further promotions in the police.
Asked about comments by Home Secretary Suella Braverman – who is of Indian heritage – saying that it was her “dream” to see asylum seekers removed to Rwanda, he drew a comparison to Mr Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech criticising mass immigration into the UK.
“I find some of the commentary coming out of the Home Office inexplicable,” said Mr Basu, whose father was from India.
“It is unbelievable to hear a succession of very powerful politicians who look like this, talking in language that my father would have remembered from 1968. It’s horrific.
“I was born in 1968. The ‘rivers of blood’ speech happened in the constituency next to where my parents lived and made their life hell. A mixed-race couple walking through the streets in the 1960s. Stoned.
“I speak about race because I know something about race, because I’m a 54-year-old mixed race man.”
