TORY KNIVES OUT FOR RUDD
Windrush fiasco brings calls for her to get a grip on Home Office... and PM is ‘furious’
AMBER Rudd faced a barrage of criticism from her own party yesterday over her handling of the Windrush debacle.
Downing Street, Cabinet ministers and MPs all made clear their anger at her failure to deal with a problem the Home Office has been aware of for weeks.
The Home Secretary was publicly backed by Tory MPs in Parliament after she was hauled to the Commons to answer questions over the treatment of Caribbean residents who came here after the Second World War.
But behind the scenes fellow Tories were scathing about her lack of grip on the Home Office.
One Whitehall source said the Prime Minister was ‘furious’ about the fiasco, which threatens to overshadow this week’s Commonwealth summit in London: ‘People have been raising this with the Home Office for weeks, only to be told it was all in hand.
‘The Commonwealth summit was supposed to be a showcase – now it’s going to be all about a completely avoidable row.’
A second insider said: ‘To say there is irritation is an understatement. It’s another self-inflicted wound from the Home Office. We kept being told it was all under control – well it doesn’t look very under control from here.’
In a highly unusual move, Miss Rudd’s fellow Cabinet minister, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid, went public with criticism of the Home Office’s mismanage- ment. Writing on Twitter, he said: ‘I’m deeply concerned to hear about difficulties some of the Windrush generation are facing with their immigration status.
‘This should not happen to people who have been longstanding pillars of our community.’
Seeking to offer reassurance, he added: ‘The Government is looking into this urgently.’
In another significant intervention, the former Conservative leader Michael Howard – also a former home secretary – made public his dismay.
The peer expressed his ‘concern and bewilderment’ over the issue and the ‘confusion and anxiety’ it had caused those involved. Condemning a ‘lamentable state of affairs’ he demanded to know how the citizenship debacle had been allowed to happen.
In the House of Lords, he asked the Government spokesman: ‘Can he shed any light on the circumfire stances in which the confusion and anxiety has been allowed to arise in the first place?’
Yesterday morning, leading Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg said the treatment of Caribbean residents was a ‘deep disgrace’ and ‘shame- ful’. He told LBC: ‘It’s absolutely dreadful – these people are as British as you and I are and it’s really extraordinary that the Home Office is coming out with this ghastly bureaucratic guff saying that they’ve got to show that they’re British.
‘Nobody’s asking us to prove that we’re British when we go and use public services.
‘I think it’s a deep disgrace and it should be top priority of the Government to sort it out. It’s such a bad way of treating people and it puts bureaucratic rules ahead of people’s lives and I think it’s shameful.’
The fiasco heaped pressure on Miss Rudd, who has come under in recent weeks over her handling of the spike in violent crime. One ministerial source said Windrush was ‘yet another Rudd blunder’. Another said the Home Secretary was ‘all over the place’ on the issue and a third called yesterday a ‘shambles’.
Last week Miss Rudd was criticised after she admitted not having seen a leaked document from her department which drew a link between cuts to police budgets and the spike in offending.
Following the chaos, bookmaker Coral slashed the odds on Miss Rudd being the next Cabinet minister to leave their post.
Before the Windrush crisis she was 33-1 to be sacked or resign, but those odds were cut to 6-1 after her statement to Parliament yesterday.
A Home Office source said: ‘Amber knows that this is about individuals – people who have built their lives here and contributed so much to our society.
‘There’s no question about their right to remain so she wants this sorted as quickly as possible, that’s why she’s put a team on this to help these people get the documentation they need and get it fast.’
The Prime Minister will today host a meeting of 12 leaders from West Indian countries affected by the scandal.
She is expected to pay public tribute to the Windrush generation, saying they are ‘part of our national life’.
‘Concern and bewilderment’