Amber Rudd’s shocking resignation plunges Theresa May’s government into chaos

By BAGEHOT

IN THIS week’s Bagehot column I ventured that Amber Rudd, Britain’s home secretary, was probably not fatally wounded by recent events, “unless there is another scandal festering in the Home Office’s basement”. It turned out that there was a lot of festering going on. Just before 10pm on April 29th Ms Rudd tendered her resignation, pitching Theresa May’s ill-starred government into yet another crisis.

This is the fifth resignation of a cabinet minister in this ten-month-old parliament: just over 20% of Mrs May’s second cabinet have quit their jobs since June 2017. Even by the standards of today’s just-in-time economy that is quite a turnover. It is also by far the most serious. Ms Rudd was one of the rising stars of the Conservative Party—and one of the very few Conservatives who came out of the last election with her reputation intact. Her resignation is a blow to the party’s future. She was also, together with Philip Hammond, the chancellor, the Cabinet’s leading “Remainer”. Ms Rudd’s resignation threatens to tilt the balance of power in both the cabinet and the party at large in favour of the hard-line Leavers. The cabinet Brexiteers (Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and David Davis) have lost a doughty and experienced opponent. Tory liberals have lost (perhaps temporarily) their best chance of replacing Mrs May with someone who favours a liberal Brexit. Though she did not see eye-to-eye with the Conservative Party membership over Brexit, Ms Rudd made them feel comfortable, with her head-girl demeanour and easy manner. The nightmare of a Jacob Rees-Mogg- (or Boris Johnson-) led Conservative Party has just got a little closer. Ms Rudd’s successor, Sajid Javid, previously secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, lacks her commitment to the Remainer cause.

Ms Rudd’s fate was sealed during her appearance before the Home Office Select Committee on April 25th, when, almost as an after-thought and towards the end of a long session, Yvette Cooper, the committee’s chairwoman, asked about earlier evidence from the immigration officers’ union on targets for the number of people who should be deported from the United Kingdom. Ms Rudd (who had acquitted herself very well up to that point and looked pretty confident about her future) replied, “We don’t have targets for removals.” This set off a cycle of claims and counter-claims, fuelled by leaks from within the Home Office bureaucracy. A document appeared that made it clear that immigration officials had indeed been given targets. Ms Rudd claimed that she had not seen any documents detailing targets—they may have appeared in her ministerial red box but the department produces thousands of pieces of paper. Backbenchers rallied to her defence, underlining not only Mrs May’s determination to keep her but also how popular she is with her party.

But on Sunday afternoon the Guardian (which has driven this controversy) produced a letter that Ms Rudd had sent to the prime minister in January 2017 talking about her ambition to increase the deportation of illegal immigrants by 10%.

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