Gary Lineker has restarted his feud with Suella Braverman by criticising her claim that she is not English despite being born in Britain.
The former Match of the Day presenter said Reform UK’s education spokesperson was wrong despite her justification that her parents were born abroad.
Lineker, 65, said such comments ‘depress me a little bit’ and were part of a plan by some to ‘divide and rule’, adding that he thought it was ‘worth calling out’.
It comes after Mrs Braverman told the BBC’s Question Time that she is ‘British of Asian ethnicity’ rather than English, because of her family’s Asian heritage.
The former Conservative home secretary was then accused by a black member of the audience of being ‘racist against herself’ and ‘reinforcing the racist argument’.
Now, Lineker has spoken out after Germany football manager Jürgen Klopp was asked last week whether his team were ‘not German enough’ or ‘not white enough’.
In yesterday’s edition of The Rest is Football podcast, Lineker said: ‘I raise it because obviously we’ve had the thing with one of the Reforms, Suella Braverman, saying the same sort of stuff that, if you’ve got a different skin colour, you’re not English.’
Lineker then quoted the response from Klopp, who said: ‘There is absolutely no reason to pay attention to these people. You won’t get my thoughts on this.
Gary Lineker spoke about Suella Braverman during his The Rest Is Football podcast yesterday
Reform UK’s education spokesperson Suella Braverman on the BBC’s Question Time in north London last Thursday when she said she is not English despite being born in Britain
‘I have little time in everyday life for idiocy and even less on social media. The great crux of our lives is that everyone is allowed to express their opinion.
‘It’s insane when something like that exists. The world would learn a thing or two from a sports changing room. There, everyone is respected based on the facts and not discredited based on false opinions.’
Lineker then said: ‘And I would also say by skin colour. It’s a scary time, I don’t really want to move into politics because I’m always a bit nervous about talking about politics but when it shows itself in football like that…
‘Football for me is great about human beings – we all get on together. In the dressing room, no one’s thinking about what the colour of someone’s skin is, they’re just thinking about whether they can get a cross in or a through ball.
‘We focus sometimes on a racist chant or something at a football game or the occasional problems we have. But in the actual dressing rooms themselves, the harmony, whether, you know, you can be a Christian, a Catholic, a Muslim, any kind of ethnicity, you can be black, you can be brown, you can be white.
‘But it just all comes together and it’s so harmonious. And, yet, politicians and people speaking out in that way, it just depresses me a little bit. I saw someone put a graphic up of all the players of various colours that have played and represented England over the years.’
He concluded: ‘I mean, come on. I know it’s done to divide and rule. That’s the whole plan. But it’s worth calling out occasionally. I really do think that.’
It follows Question Time host Fiona Bruce asking Mrs Braverman last Thursday for her views about what it meant to be English, after an audience member cited how cited how former prime minister Rishi Sunak recently spoke about the subject.
Germany manager Jurgen Klopp at a press conference in Herzogenaurach on September 30, when he was asked whether the football team are ‘not German enough’ or ‘not white enough’
Mrs Braverman responded: ‘Doesn’t sound very controversial to me but suddenly it has become debatable. I was born in London, north London actually, in 1980.
‘My parents came as immigrants themselves to this country with nothing. Very grateful to Britain for the hand of friendship that Britain extended to them.
‘I’ve always considered myself British of Asian ethnicity and that’s never been something that I would question. Of course I’m not English. I’m not an English person.
‘I am of Asian origin and in my book, I track some of my ancestry. Some of my ancestors come from India via Mauritius and Kenya all over the world but they’re not English. So it would be misrepresentative of me to co-opt Englishness as an ethnicity.’
The row comes three years after Lineker compared Mrs Braverman’s language around the Conservative Government’s immigration policy to that of Nazi Germany.
He had responded on social media to a Home Office video in which Mrs Braverman unveiled plans to stop migrants crossing the English Channel on small boats.
The former England striker tweeted in March 2023: ‘There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries.
‘This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s.’
The BBC temporarily took Lineker off air before other presenters also walked out in solidarity, causing major disruption to sports coverage before he was reinstated.
Meanwhile Kemi Badenoch today rejected the suggestion that only white people can be English.
Asked about Mrs Braverman’s recent comments, the Conservative leader told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘I don’t understand why all of a sudden some people are policing other people’s identity.
‘I think identity is something very personal. If that’s how she feels about herself, I think that’s fine. But what I’m worried about is, you know, politicians running around telling some people that they are not English.’
She added: ‘I think that we need we need to be very careful with this sort of conversation. What are my children hearing when they’re listening to things like that?’
Mrs Badenoch said: ‘My children, they are half white and half black. We are a multiracial country. I think we should be proud of that.
‘I think politicians should be talking about how we bring people together. I am tired of identity politics, where people keep putting other people into boxes.
‘I think it just creates more division. That’s not what the Conservative Party is about. The Conservative Party is about uniting people.’
