In 2016, Professor Silver complained to West Midlands Police that British Home Secretary Amber Rudd had committed a so-called 'hate crime' while giving a political speech at the Conservative Party conference. During an interview with Andrew Neil on BBC2's Daily Politics, the unrepentant Prof Silver said: "I didn’t actually see the speech but I’ve read the draft. And I’ve looked at all the feedback that there was to the speech. I’ve read the speech carefully and I’ve looked at all the feedback. It’s discriminating against foreigners, you pick on them and say we want to give jobs to British people and not to foreigners. It was interpreted that way."
During the subsequent discussion on the programme, former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard responded by stating: "Of course it wasn't a hate incident... What Amber Rudd said was no different from Gordon Brown [former Labour prime minister] when he said there should be British jobs for British workers. I think Mr Silver should be thoroughly ashamed of himself because what he's doing is to bring a well-intentioned piece of legislation into disrepute."
The BBC subsequently reported that West Midlands Police had not formally investigated the speech, but had recorded it as a "non-crime hate incident" in accordance with national police guidelines.
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