Rudd ‘hung out to dry’ by No10
Friends of beleaguered Home Secretary insist she’s been abandoned by May over Windrush
AMBER Rudd feels ‘hung out to dry’ by Theresa May over the immigration storm threatening to destroy her career, her allies have told The Mail on Sunday.
The Home Secretary is fighting for her political life this weekend after a series of damaging leaks over her handling of the Windrush saga.
This has seen post-war Commonwealth citizens who came to Britain singled out for deportation.
Miss Rudd will be forced to explain to the Commons tomorrow why she denied knowing about her department setting migrant removal targets – only for a memo to then emerge showing that she had been copied in to the details of just such a policy.
It has led to Labour calls for her resignation and growing disquiet among her colleagues.
But allies of Miss Rudd complain that she has been left isolated by No 10 and let down by her officials at the Home Office.
One said: ‘Amber has been caught in a s*** sandwich. There has been no support from Downing Street, either politically or in terms of communications.
‘The whole purpose seems to have been to circle the tanks around the Prime Minister to make sure that she doesn’t take any collateral damage from the affair.
‘Amber has also been let down by her officials. When she has gone to them for information she has been given duff steers on figures and targets.’
Another sympathetic colleague of Miss Rudd said that her job had been made ‘almost impossible’ by the attitude of Downing Street.
‘She hasn’t been allowed to do the job in her own way,’ the colleague said. ‘While [Defence Secretary] Gavin Williamson does his own thing, briefing the press without telling No10 and arranging his own trips, Amber doesn’t get the same leeway.
‘The people around the PM are engaged in an operation to keep her in place until the next Election. They are driven by the desire to keep their jobs as long as possible and see Amber as a threat to that.’
Miss Rudd’s friends also point the finger at Brexitsupporting Cabinet Ministers such as Michael Gove.
They claim they have sought to destabilise her behind the scenes because of her support for a ‘soft’ Brexit, including customs union membership.
Miss Rudd was urged to hit back by counter-briefing against the Brexiteers, but she has told colleagues she didn’t want to ‘play that game’.
One friend said: ‘She is too nice for her own good.’
Miss Rudd told the Commons on Thursday she had never agreed to specific targets for removing migrants.
However, a day later a memo emerged which had been sent to the Home Secretary saying that officials had set ‘a target of achieving 12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18’.
It also revealed ‘we have exceeded our target of assisted returns’ and progress had been made on achieving the 10 per cent increase in deportations promised to Miss Rudd.
Last night, a No10 source said: ‘The Prime Minister has made clear that the Home Secretary has her complete confidence.’
AMBER RUDD’S handling of the Windrush saga has not inspired confidence. The Home Secretary has dismayed Cabinet colleagues by failing to grip the issue, and looks a diminished figure as a result. But wider political forces are also at play.
Ms Rudd’s allies suspect pro-Brexit Michael Gove and Boris Johnson of fanning the flames of the crisis because they object to Ms Rudd’s support for the pragmatic ‘soft’ Brexit option of the UK staying in the Customs Union.
This is a dangerous period for the Government. Brexit Secretary David Davis is privately fuming at being marginalised by the Prime Minister in the Brexit policymaking process in favour of No10 aide Oliver Robbins.
Friends warn that Mr Davis could quit the Government, further destabilising Mrs May’s premiership.
And looming over everything is the knife-edge Commons vote, expected in June, on whether to overturn Mrs May’s decision to take us out of the Customs Union. This is fast taking on the complexion of a vote of confidence.
This is why Damian Green’s intervention – calling for MPs to swing behind the ‘sensible compromise’ of a ‘mutually beneficial customs arrangement’ – should be endorsed.
As the former Deputy Prime Minister makes clear, the alternative could be the collapse of Mrs May’s administration – and the ushering into Government of Mr Corbyn’s toxic rabble.