Wigan MP Lisa Nandy widely praised for powerful speech on Question Time

Ms Nandy was responding to a question from an audience member about Suella Braverman’s controversial speech earlier this week, in which the Home Secretary claimed “multiculturalism had failed”.

In the programme, which was broadcast from Sale, Greater Manchester, Ms Nandy said: “I grew up in the 1980s in the shadow of Enoch Powell with an Indian-born dad and British-born mum.

“When I heard our home secretary standing up this week talking about the children of ‘foreign-born mothers’, it took me right back to that era, when families like ours were constantly under attack from Tory politicians being told that we were the problem facing Britain.

“And I would just say to politicians like Suella, it was a gift to grow up in this city, that has been shaped by waves of immigration over many centuries and has always provided a warm welcome to refugees fleeing persecution.

″It was a gift to grow up amongst friends who were black, who were white, who were from all sorts of ethnic minority backgrounds, and we never even noticed because it was just so normal.”

Ms Nandy’s comments were made against the background of the recent decision to convert Kilhey Court hotel in Standish into accommodation for asylum seekers, a move which has sparked fierce local opposition.

Without referring to Kilhey Court directly, Ms Nandy went on to tell the audience, if the government were concerned about asylum seekers in hotels, “why aren’t you processing asylum claims and getting a grip on the asylum system?”

Ms Nandy, who was moved to the international development brief in a recent Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, concluded her passionate two-minute impromptu speech by saying: “The problem facing this country is not people like me, or this lady here, or our inability to understand one another.

“The problems facing this country have one cause and one cause alone: politicians like Suella Braverman and this Tory government.”

Her remarks were widely praised on social media. For example, Karen Norris tweeted: “Lisa Nandy has a stormer on #bbcqt tonight. Passionate, honest and not accepting the usual interruptions from Fiona Bruce. She really outclassed Tory Mark Spencer.”