Inevitable. That is how Amber Rudd’s resignation is now being described, only 24 hours after it took commentators, politicians and the public by surprise. Whatever they say now, most people expected that she would fight on — and survive.
In many respects, however, her demise was a textbook British political resignation. Many a Home Secretary has failed to get to grips with their brief, which is the widest ranging in the business. In addition to immigration, the job encompasses issues as diverse as knife crime, drugs, police funding, animal testing and terrorism. There is always at least one crisis lurking around the corner.
Rudd’s departure was prompted by the Windrush scandal, the sort of Home Office disaster that was commonplace before 2010, when Theresa May took an iron grip on the department. The New Labour heavyweight Charles Clarke was forced to quit in 2006 after the department released over a thousand foreign prisoners into the community. His successor John Reid promptly declared the Home Office not fit for purpose, while Jacqui Smith admits that she survived her tenure more by luck than skill. This latest resignation is, in that respect, a reversion to the norm.
Like many ministers before her, Rudd’s exit was triggered not by the Windrush affair itself but by her attempt to spin her way out of trouble afterwards. Under fire from incisive questions at the Home Affairs Select Committee, she repeated what she had been told by her staff – that there had been no deportation targets for illegal migrants on her watch. Subsequent leaks proved that targets had been in place and that she had been informed about them. Once she realised that she had misled parliament she soon decided that it was time to go. Damian Green, who until Rudd’s demise was the most recent minister to be forced out, met his end in similar circumstances. Although he had been accused of inappropriate conduct towards a young journalist and of watching pornography at work, his resignation was caused by a misleading public briefing rather than the original scandal.
Sajid Javid has now stepped into Rudd’s shoes and must navigate the political minefield of the Home Office. He can take several lessons from his predecessors’ failings.
Most importantly he will need to know his brief well, as a Home Secretary who scrimps on detail won’t last long. Theresa May was so successful in the role because she never spoke on a topic without being fully briefed on it. Similarly Jeremy Hunt — another consummate survivor as Health Secretary – is renowned for an obsession with minutiae, keeping spreadsheets of the performance of individual hospitals on his office wall.
Javid must try to keep his civil servants on side. One of Rudd’s critical errors was to allow her staff to be blamed for the Windrush scandal, prompting the targeted leaks against her. Similarly in 2001 Stephen Byers fell out with his press officers at the gargantuan Department for Local Government, Transport and the Regions and faced an unending series of leaks that were clearly designed to topple him. After several months he was finally worn down and quit his post in exhaustion, a move that angered Prime Minister Tony Blair so much that he abolished the whole department.
The new Home Secretary must hire trusted, loyal gatekeepers in order to survive. For all the criticisms levelled at Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy after last year’s general election debacle, they fiercely guarded Theresa May during her tenure at the Home Office by filtering access, restricting those who saw sensitive documents and dividing up responsibility for the various areas under her remit. It has been suggested that Rudd’s advisors were neither as insightful nor as far-sighted. Perceptive lieutenants with a keen eye for the next scandal have always proved an invaluable asset.
Finally, when trouble inevitably arises, Javid must know his facts thoroughly and determine the political strategy well in advance of his first public appearance. Survival is now more difficult than ever before, because for the first time in recent memory the opposition’s most talented politicians sit on select committees rather than the front bench, granting them the power to conduct hearings and prompt erroneous statements. Yvette Cooper’s exposure of Rudd over the last week was at once careful, considered and brutal. In order to survive such scrutiny every public statement must be clearly defensible.
The better approach, however, might be to quit as soon as a major scandal arises, taking responsibility for errors without running the risk of misleading the public or parliament. The most skilful political resignee of recent years was Conservative MP Mark Harper, who, in 2013, managed to hire an illegal immigrant as his cleaner while the Minister of State for Immigration in the Home Office. He took the plunge and quit early before the story had fully emerged. After three months, he was back in government with a better job, his misdemeanour forgotten. The new Home Secretary should have his example in mind when the next crisis rears its head.
