PM HAS ‘QUESTIONS TO ANSWER’
THERESA May faced questions over her immigration policies as new Home Secretary Sajid Javid promised to “do right” by the Windrush generation.
The Prime Minister defended targets for the removal of illegal immigrants as she confirmed the practice was in place when she was home secretary.
But Jeremy Corbyn insisted Mrs May had “questions to answer” about her time in the Home Office following the resignation of her “human shield” Amber Rudd.
Mr Javid signalled a break from his predecessors in the Home Office by telling MPs he would not use the phrase “hostile environment” to describe the approach to tackling illegal immigration.
Ms Rudd quit after admitting she “inadvertently” misled MPs over Government targets for removing illegal migrants.
During an England local election campaign visit to Greater Manchester, Mrs May said: “When I was home secretary, yes, there were targets in terms of removing people from the country who were here illegally.
“This is important. If you talk to members of the public they want to ensure that we are dealing with people who are here illegally.”
Following Ms Rudd’s departure, Labour concentrated its fire on the Prime Minister who was home secretary from 2010 until she entered Number 10 in 2016.
Labour leader Mr Corbyn said Mrs May “now has questions to answer” about “what she actually did as home secretary”.
“She was presiding over, in her terms, the creation of a hostile environment,” he said.
As well as the row over what she knew about targets on migrant removals, Ms Rudd had been battling intense criticism over the Windrush scandal, which has seen people from a Caribbean background denied access to benefits and healthcare or threatened with deportation despite decades of residence in the UK.
She became the fifth enforced departure from the Cabinet since last year’s snap general election and stepped down the evening before she was due to make a statement in the House of Commons.
Making his Commons debut as Home Secretary, Mr Javid told Windrush generation migrants who had struggled to prove their immigration status: “This never should have been the case and I will do whatever it takes to put it right.”
Drawing on his own background as the son of migrants from Pakistan, he told MPs: “When I heard that people who were long-standing pillars of their community were being impacted for simply not having the right documents to prove their legal status in the UK, I thought that it could be my mum, my brother, my uncle or even me.
“That’s why I am so personally committed to and invested in resolving the difficulties faced by the people of the Windrush generation who have built their lives here and contributed so much.”
Asked about the “hostile environment” approach, Mr Javid said: “I think it is a phrase that is unhelpful and it does not represent our values as a country.”
He said he wanted a “compliant environment” instead.
Former investment banker Mr Javid was given the job during a telephone call with Mrs May and becomes the first person from an ethnic minority background to hold one of the four great offices of state.
He was replaced as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government by former Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire, who has recently returned to Westminster after treatment for cancer.
International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt takes on Ms Rudd’s former responsibilities as Minister for Women and Equalities.
Labour MP David Lammy, who has
been a leading parliamentary campaigner on the Windrush row, said Mrs May must get rid of immigration laws introduced in 2014 which encouraged the “hostile environment”.
Writing in The Guardian, Mr Lammy said: “The Windrush generation will not get justice until it is the law that is changed, not just the home secretary.”
Meanwhile, the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt called for Mr Javid to “go to all lengths to dispel any fears that what was visited on the Windrush generation will not be repeated in respect of EU citizens living in the UK.”
AMBER Rudd’s resignation as Home Secretary in the wake of the Windrush scandal is a stark reminder to Theresa May that much more can go wrong besides Brexit.
Westminster has been dominated for months by machinations surrounding Britain’s departure from the EU. The power balance in the cabinet between Remainers and Brexiteers has been closely scrutinised, just as the economic consequences of various Brexit scenarios have been fiercely debated.
But Ms Rudd’s departure as Home Secretary will send a chill down the spines of her fellow cabinet colleagues, reminding them that the traditional laws of politics still apply and their careers can become unstuck the moment a scandal blows up in an area where they are supposed to be in control.
As they sit in their Whitehall offices they will wonder what other smouldering issues have the potential to end their time in power and torch away confidence in Mrs May’s minority government ahead of Brexit next year and the election due in 2022.
For the PM, the consequences of the Windrush fiasco and Ms Rudd’s exit will be particularly worrying.
A supposedly divided Labour party has demonstrated that it can unite and exploit weaknesses in her government’s ranks. Yvette Cooper – who stood for the Labour leadership in the 2015 contest – piled the pressure on the Home Secretary in her role as chair of the Home Affairs select committee.
It was while before her committee that Ms Rudd made the fateful claim that the Home Office did not have targets for removals. Meanwhile, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, one of the most influential figures on the Labour left, made the case that Ms Rudd could not stay in her job.
Uproar at the Government’s treatment of Commonwealth citizens has brought together a Labour party whose leadership was under intense criticism over its handling of antisemitism allegations and its response to both the Salisbury poisonings and the reported chemical weapons attack in Syria.
Labour has come together just ahead of the English council elections in which an array of Labour gains would cement the narrative that the Conservatives are in deep trouble.
But this is not the only reason why Mrs May has reason to fret.
The PM will face renewed questions about the policies she put in place during her epic tenure as Home Secretary (May 2010 to July 2016). Ms Rudd was clearly confused about the removal targets, but how much did the PM know?
Her 2017 manifesto repeated the pledge to get “net migration down to the tens of thousands”. This in itself is a target which would shape the priorities and practices of government departments and agencies.
It implies radical change, given that in the 12 months to September 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics, there were “244,000 more people coming to the UK than leaving”. The type of gear change required to bring net migration under 100,000 would always run the risk of collateral damage.
The Government will come under pressure to abandon this goal if the perception takes root that – despite a ruthless determination to get people out of the UK – ministers have failed to get a grip on immigration and have brought suffering to people of the Commonwealth who legally made their home in Britain.
Accusations of callousness and incompetence will sting any government, but for Mrs May the attacks will be particularly painful.
She did not get into politics to execute Brexit. In her July 2016 speech delivered in Downing St after securing the Tory leadership she put social justice at the heart of her agenda.
She described how “if you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white”. Now, the impact of Government policies on ethnic minorities is under intense examination.
The Grenfell Tower fire and its aftermath put the focus on the dire consequences of enduring inequality in Britain’s richest city. The treatment of relatives of the Windrush generation is a scandal that will only strengthen fears that this is a country where the most vulnerable citizens suffer not just poverty but injustice and risks to their lives.
The Conservatives have long presented themselves as the party of law and order but the 22% jump in knife crime in Wales and England in 2017, alongside an 11% increase in firearms offences, will feed an impression that neighbourhoods have become unsafe on the PM’s watch.
It was Mrs May who in 2002 warned her party of the consequences of being seen as the “nasty party”. The so-called Tory modernisers worked tirelessly to detoxify the Conservative brand but Labour will grasp every opportunity to present the party as reckless, uncaring and not up to the job of leading the country as Brexit looms.
If Whitehall cannot ensure that Windrush citizens are not steamrollered by the government machine, is it capable of protecting the rights of EU nationals, implementing a solution to the Irish border dilemma, and forging a new partnership with Europol?
Labour will seek to convince voters that although Jeremy Corbyn may not look like a PM from central casting his team share the values and priorities of ordinary people. The party has shown that despite its glaring divisions the different factions can join forces and lever a Home Secretary out of office; if they sense they can oust a PM that shared purpose will grow stronger.
All this comes as Mrs May fights to secure the unity of her own party on Europe. She will hope that the spectre of Mr Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell moving into Downing St will cool heads in her own ranks.
Brexit inspires particularly ferocious passions because what is at stake goes beyond everyday politics – the future direction of Britain and its relationship with Europe is there to be debated.
This is a time when some MPs will feel torn between loyalty to their party and their country.
Even the greatest Tory leader would struggle to instil a sense of calm and consensus in such an atmosphere. But it’s in tackling crises that PMs prove their mettle and we see their core values.
In responding to the present scandal, Mrs May needs to convince the country she leads a Government of competence and compassion. If she cannot, the search for her successor will begin in earnest.