Interior Ministry officials have threatened to go on strike and made comparisons to the work of the Third Reich over Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Comments on an internal bulletin board include calls for industrial action to halt the policy and concerns from a 20-year-old employee who feels “deeply ashamed” and is considering his position.
An anonymous civil servant made a comparison with the service under Adolf Hitler. Citing Nazi trials after World War II in Nuremberg, they wrote: “The words ‘just obeying orders’ resonate in history and make me feel disgusted.” They were later punished by a colleague for “absurd comparisons.”
This comes when a Conservative MP challenged the government’s plan to build a treatment center for asylum seekers in a small village in North Yorkshire.
Internal comments, first revealed by Mail +, revealed that dozens of officials had expressed their opposition to the agreement with Rwanda, which was signed by the interior minister this week and applauded by Boris Johnson.
An Interior Ministry official asked if officials would be required to campaign against the policy. “Do we have a responsibility not just to leave, but to organize and resist?” “We can’t just wash our hands and leave,” they wrote. Another asked: “I find the government’s proposal completely unethical and it has a direct impact on my work. As a civil servant, can I refuse this type of work contrary to my own ethics? ”
Another said: “I have been working for the Ministry of Interior for 20 years. There were some ups and downs during that time. But this announcement made me ashamed, and for the first time I am considering my position here and whether I should leave this department. “
Another said: “Can the permanent secretary and senior officials advise employees on how to deal with such policies in good conscience? I don’t feel sure to tell people that I work for the Ministry of the Interior and now I just play an unassuming role in another government agency when they ask me what I do for a job.
The report was confirmed as accurate by a source from the Ministry of Interior. Comments will be made available to Permanent Secretary of the Interior Matthew Rycroft during an online group call for staff on Thursday.
Further developing, the local Tory MP challenged plans for a new center at the former RAF Linton-on-Ouse base, announced as part of the government’s new migration measures.
Kevin Hollinrake, representing Thirsk and Malton, initially speculated that he was involved in the plans.
But on Wednesday, after meeting with Patel, he called for the proposal to be overturned and threatened to support a judicial review if it did not.
“The current proposal for 1,500 young men in an open camp in the heart of a small rural village is not applicable, sustainable or acceptable,” Holinrake wrote in a letter to the secretary of state. “It’s just that having a site can’t dictate the appropriateness of a location,” he said.
Some Conservative MPs expressed concern over Rwanda’s policy on Wednesday as they discussed the government’s proposal to disagree with the Lords’ amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill.
Simon Hoare, an MP from North Dorset, said: “The safe route would obviously destroy the illicit trafficking in human smuggling at once. This is one way to deal with it.
“I do not see how moving people to Rwanda will in any way disrupt this money-making scheme that these human traffickers have. They will just use different routes to land people on our shores. I just don’t understand it, I’m scared. “
Former Conservative Minister Sir Bob Neal has proposed using £ 120m, originally paid to the Rwandan government, to improve the UK’s claims handling system.
“May I say that the salary of a judge at the immigration tribunal, a first-level judge, is 117,000 British pounds. If you put the cost, even the most generous, it’s around £ 200,000.
“Look at the 120 million pounds so far committed to the Rwanda scheme; for this, about 600 first-level judges of the tribunal or any number of hundreds of employees of the case in the Ministry of the Interior can be purchased. Wouldn’t that be an alternative to actually investing in the current system? … This would certainly be a constructive alternative, “he said.
Tom Parsglow, Junior Minister for Migration, replied: “This in itself will not solve this problem, and I really believe that the approach we are taking through the comprehensive plan will shift the dial, change the momentum and ultimately help us to shut down destroy these evil criminal networks. “
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said: “The Home Office is committed to constructive and open discussions with staff on our policies. However, personal attacks are unacceptable and we will remove comments from our channels that are disrespectful, violate our guidelines or contradict the values of the civil service for integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.
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