A senior Interior Ministry official has told thousands of his staff that they will not break the law or be guilty of racism if they impose Priti Patel’s plan to send people with rejected asylum applications to the United Kingdom in Rwanda.
Amid growing anger from the department’s workforce, Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary, was confronted with questions at an online staff meeting, asking if the secretary’s policy of giving people a one-way ticket to Kigali was racist, while others wanted to they know whether the new policy was within the framework of international law.
Rycroft told officials they had to follow the ministers’ decisions and reminded them of the neutral role of the civil service, sources said.
The scheduled online meeting came a day after Interior Ministry officials threatened to strike and compared it to work for the Third Reich over Patel’s plan.
One source said Rycroft was “attuned” to the government’s claim that the Nationality and Borders bill would not have to be passed before the policy could be implemented.
Another source said officials still do not know the criteria for deciding whether a recent migrant can be sent to Rwanda, a country that has been heavily criticized for its human rights.
The source said: “From today’s briefing it became clear that the opinion of staff is not taken into account at all. This was the case with “you are civil servants, so you have to keep going.” There was little certainty when it came to the ethical and legal concerns raised by many people at the meeting. And it was still unclear how the admissibility decisions would be made.
“The department seems determined to give full gas and I and many other colleagues are deeply concerned.
Trade union leaders meet with staff and do not rule out some form of industrial action.
PCS Secretary-General Mark Servotka told the Guardian: “Following last week’s announcement, it is clear that this government is working hard on this unimaginably cruel and insensitive policy.
“PCS members will be expected to comply with the Secretary-General’s requests and we are in talks with members to hear their concerns and gather their views. Our objection to this policy is absolute and we will assess our capabilities as the Union seeks to challenge it. “
As a sign of deep anger at the Home Office over the asylum plan, staff members speculated that the policy was racist, unethical and would inevitably be scrutinized by an investigation. Many presented their thoughts anonymously before the online meeting with Rycroft.
Among the questions asked were whether any lessons had been learned from the Windrush scandal and whether Ukrainian refugees would also be sent to Rwanda, or was it “only people of color?”
One was, “How can we seriously say in one breath that we are committed to correcting Windrush’s mistakes, and then say in the next that we are sending migrants thousands of miles to Rwanda for ‘processing’?”
Other comments suggest Interior Ministry officials want to quit in protest.
One read: “Like our CS [civil services] leaders, how do you plan to provide HO [Home Office] keeps your good people? Personally, this policy makes me want to move a department or out of government. “
Another asked, “How should we (HO staff) defend the organization against the accusation that this decision is / seems racist? (Both in terms of the difference in Ukraine’s reaction and in terms of the colonial tone). “
All reports had more than 100 thumbs-up notices from colleagues.
The question with the highest number of thumbs up – 224 in total – came from a civil servant who said in a post: “Somewhere down the road, when the inevitable happened, what went wrong with the Rwanda outsourcing investigation, to say that no one spoke at that time. We are talking. This is a bad idea – don’t do it! I think a lot of employees feel that way. Can this be escalated? ”
On Sunday, it became clear that Rycroft had refused to sign Patel’s plans, saying he could not be sure it would provide value for the taxpayer’s money. However, sources said he “fully supports” the online meeting’s policy, while being accompanied by other officials. He criticized the leak of questions asked by officials, saying it was a violation of the civil service code.
One official dismissed the claim that the policy was racist, saying the policy focused on the way she entered, not on the color of her face.
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 such as integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.
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