Gary Lineker branded a ‘desperate’ attention seeker by Foreign Secretary over ‘Nazi’ migrant jibe

Gary Lineker was accused of being ‘desperate to gain attention’ by a senior minister today as the row over his criticism of Government immigration policy showed no signs of calming.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly hit out at the former England ace turned BBC sports presenter who caused outrage earlier this week with an attack on Suella Braverman.

The Match of the Day host faces calls to quit or be sacked after he likened the rhetoric around the Home Secretary’s plans for cross-channel migrants to that used by the Nazis in 1930s Germany.

But he has refused to step down and the BBC has yet to take action against him over his outburst. It came as Rishi Sunak announced plans to kick out anyone who arrived in Britain via small boats from the continent and claimed asylum. 

Speaking to LBC from Paris, where the PM and his top team are meeting their French counterparts today, Mr Cleverly said: ‘There are some people desperate to gain attention by using deeply offensive and inappropriate language about this, and I would gently suggest they read their history books a little bit more carefully. 

‘The simple truth of the matter is the UK is a welcoming and hospitable country.’

Meanwhile former culture secretary Nadine Dorries also weighed in. The chat show host and MP said that failure to fire Mr Lineker would mean the BBC was only paying ‘lip service’ to its remit of impartiality. 

Gary Lineker, former England ace turned BBC sports presenter, caused outrage earlier this week with an attack on Suella Braverman

Speaking to LBC from Paris, where the PM and his top team are meeting their French counterparts today, James Cleverly said: ‘There are some people desperate to gain attention by using deeply offensive and inappropriate language about this, and I would gently suggest they read their history books a little bit more carefully’

Meanwhile former culture secretary Nadine Dorries also weighed in. The chat show host and MP said that failure to fire Mr Lineker would mean the BBC was only paying ‘lip service’ to its remit of impartiality

Yesterday Mrs Braverman accused Mr Lineker, 62, of diminishing the tragedy of the Holocaust as ministers engaged in an open row.

Commons leader Penny Mordaunt accused Labour of ‘borrowing from the Gary Lineker playbook’ by being the ‘party of goal hangers’ taking easy shots against the Government.

The former England striker hit back at her ‘clumsy analogy’, saying he was ‘just happy to have been better in the six-yard box than you are at the dispatch box’.

The sports pundit has been at the centre of an impartiality row after criticising the Government’s ‘cruel’ plans to tackle small boat crossings of the Channel.

He also compared the language surrounding the immigration plans with 1930s Germany.

Mrs Braverman said she found the comments ‘offensive’ because her husband is Jewish.

‘My children are therefore directly descendant from people who were murdered in gas chambers during the Holocaust,’ she told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast.

‘To kind of throw out those kind of flippant analogies diminishes the unspeakable tragedy that millions of people went through and I don’t think anything that is happening in the UK today can come close to what happened in the Holocaust.

‘So I find it a lazy and unhelpful comparison to make.’

Mr Lineker said he looked forward to presenting Match of the Day this weekend despite the ‘ridiculously out of proportion story’ surrounding his comments.

Criticising the asylum plan earlier this week, he tweeted: ‘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.’