Javid named to take over as minister
LONDON: Britain’s Theresa May appointed Sajid Javid as her new interior minister yesterday, elevating the former banker to try to draw a line under an immigration scandal that has threatened the prime minister’s authority.
Known for his passion for detail when he was business minister, Javid, who backed staying in the European Union, will take over Britain’s Home Office at a time it is under scrutiny for using targets for the deportation of illegal migrants.
He may also change the balance adopted by May’s team in negotiating Britain’s departure from the EU.
A lukewarm campaigner to stay in the bloc, he said the referendum result in 2016 meant that ‘‘in some ways, we’re all Brexiteers now’’.
‘‘The Queen has been pleased to approve the appointment of the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP as Secretary of State for the Home Department,’’ May’s office said in a statement.
His predecessor, Amber Rudd, was forced to resign after she admitted in a letter to May that she had ‘‘inadvertently misled’’ a parliamentary committee last week by denying the Government had targets for the deportation of illegal migrants.
May accepted her resignation, a blow to the prime minister as Rudd was one of her closest allies.
It was also a blow to those lawmakers in the governing Conservative Party who want to retain the closest possible ties with the EU after Brexit.
For two weeks, British ministers have been struggling to explain why some descendants of the socalled ‘‘Windrush genera tion’’, invited to Britain to plug labour shortfalls between 1948 and 1971, had been denied basic rights.
The Windrush scandal overshadowed the Commonwealth summit in London and has raised questions about May’s sixyear stint as interior minister before she became prime minister in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Facing questions over the Windrush scandal, Rudd (54) told MPs last week that Britain did not have targets for the removal of immigrants, but was forced to clarify her words after leaked documents showed some targets did exist.
After repeated challenges to her testimony on the deportation of immigrants, Rudd telephoned May and offered her resignation.
The Government has apologised for the fiasco and promised citizenship and compensation to those affected, including to people who have lost their jobs, been threatened with deportation and denied benefits because of the errors.
The immigrants are named after the Empire Windrush, one of the first ships to bring Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948, when Commonwealth citizens were invited to fill labour shortages after World War 2.
Almost half a million people left their homes in the West Indies to live in Britain between 1948 and 1970, according to Britain’s National Archives. — Reuters