BBC to have 'frank conversation' with Gary Lineker over asylum comments

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The BBC is set to have a 'frank conversation' with Gary Lineker over his comments on the government's new asylum policy. The Match of the Day presenter posted a number of tweets in response to the Home Secretary's announcement that asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on small boats will be detained without the possibility of bail.

He compared the language used to launch the new asylum policy to 1930s Germany and said the plan was 'beyond awful'. As Suella Braverman branded the remarks as 'disappointing and unhelpful', a BBC source told the PA news agency that the corporation is taking the matter 'seriously' and expects to have a 'frank conversation' with the 62-year-old football pundit.

Lineker was also criticised by Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who said on Wednesday that the presenter is 'so far out of step with the British public'. READ MORE: Gary Lineker sparks BBC impartiality row with migration policy comments On Tuesday, the ex-England striker wrote on Twitter about a Home Office video in which Ms Braverman unveiled the Government’s plans to stop migrants crossing the Channel on small boats and said the UK is being 'overwhelmed'.

He said: "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." In response to his comments, Ms Braverman told BBC Breakfast: "I’m disappointed, obviously.