Amber Rudd’s time in the Home Office has been plagued with errors, lack of leadership and distasteful policies. She has overseen what has possibly been one of the most damaging crisis of a political career, yet still remains in a job and with the support of Theresa May. The Windrush scandal has exploded and the Home Office is completely Rudderless and no-one steering the department, but Amber Rudd herself has been keen to deflect blame away from herself.
Firstly, Theresa May attempted to blame Labour in 2009 but that was false, secondly, they tried to claim that Theresa May had no idea, this was later revealed as false and now Amber Rudd is trying to claim that they had no idea of any regional targets set.
Immigration targets
On Wednesday, Amber Rudd appeared before MPs to try and determine how she was unaware that her own department had set strict targets for the voluntary removal of undocumented immigrants. In a testimony from a union official, who had claimed that these targets had existed, Amber Rudd responded by saying that she had asked for more removals generally but was unaware of any regional targets. A 2015 report says the Home Office set targets for voluntary departures of people who could not lawfully stay in the UK.
Furthermore, the target set in 2015 was 12,000 voluntary departures, this was an increase of 60% from the previous year, which prompted concerns that immigration officials would be put under severe pressure to meet those targets and legal migrants who were struggling to prove their status may have been caught up in the omnishambles.
But what is even more damning being that the Guardian have reported that a 6-page memo prepared by Hugh Ind, the director general of the Home Office’s Immigration Enforcement agency, was sent to Mrs Rudd and other senior ministers which boasted of the high levels of deportations. Rudd did respond by saying she had “not seen the Leaked memo”.
What is concerning is whether Amber Rudd is that incompetent or she was just wilfully trying to implement her and her predecessor’s racist policies and get away with it by claiming the ignorance card.
