Priti Patel: she’s not one to listen to advice she doesn’t like.
The Home Secretary has confirmed that she is ignoring the advice of an adviser who said the Rwandan government tortures political opponents, in pushing her policy of deporting asylum-seekers there.
Priti Patel insisted that Rwanda was a “safe country”.
She said the comments had been made by “officials in a different government department”.
She added: “But of course it is the Home Office who has led the economic development migration partnership which is our resettlement partnership to Rwanda. Rwanda is a safe country and all our work with the government of Rwanda shows that.”
She was responding to a High Court judgment that seven statements by an adviser should be made public in advance of a Supreme Court ruling on whether the Rwanda deportation policy is legal.
A judge ruled that a further four statements should not be published as they could potentially harm international relations.
It is not unreasonable – on the face of it – for the government to seek advice and then ignore what it is told.
Governments may take opinions from multiple sources before forming their own opinions and policy.
But this has the potential to blow up in the Tory government’s collective face, if the decision to ignore warnings about this foreign government leads to asylum-seekers being harmed.
Illegal policy? Priti Patel announced the plan to deport asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda back in April. But a first flight there was aborted at the last minute as the legality of the scheme was challenged.
The High Court has ruled that a government adviser’s comment that Rwanda’s government tortures and kills political opponents – and six others – should be published ahead of a legal battle to decide whether deportations to that country are legal.
But four further comments by the same person were judged necessary to keep entirely secret because of the damage they would do to international relations between the UK and that country.
This leads to an obvious question:
Given the incendiary nature of the “torture” comment, how damning were the four that are being kept secret? And how can the UK’s Tory government justify sending asylum seekers to Rwanda after being provided with such information?
“I recognise that there is a strong public interest in not undermining international relations with a friendly state. Nonetheless, that consideration is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring access to relevant information in this litigation and by the extent to which the information is already in the public domain.”
Migrants identified for the first aborted flight, and three media organisations – BBC News, including BBC Two’s Newsnight, The Times and The Guardian newspapers – sought the disclosure of the material.
The judge said given September’s major legal action had to decide whether sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was lawful, the claimants and the court needed to consider as much evidence as possible.
He said some of the official’s comments would have “evidential significance” – and the public interest in disclosing them outweighed the government’s case for keeping them secret.
The government has been allowed time to consider an appeal. If the judgment stands, the comments are likely to emerge in public in September.
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Buddies: Boris Johnson and Evgeny Lebedev. What public interest issues could possibly justify delaying whether the liar on the left interfered to put the son-of-a-Russian-spy on the right into the House of Lords?
It seems the Conservative government has found yet another piece of important information about Boris Johnson that it wants to hide. That’s right: Boris Johnson.
It concerns the way Johnson’s close friend, the Russian son-of-a-spy Evgeny Lebedev, was ennobled (given a place in the House of Lords).
Parliament voted to instruct the government that it must provide all information on how this happened, by April 28.
But the government has ignored this instruction from the UK’s sovereign institution.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Ellis has argued that he could not give out information where it was “not in the public interest to do so” and the government would need more time to deal with “all the necessary considerations”.
Funny, that. The instruction was given at the end of March so ministers have had a month to sort out any public interest issues. That’s plenty of time.
Also, we all know that the substantive issue is whether Boris Johnson interfered to override concerns about Lebedev by the security services. There’s absolutely no public interest issue around that.
In fact, it seems to This Writer that “Save Big Dog” is the only issue here.
The Guardian revealed back in 2020 that Boris Johnson overruled concerns voiced by the security services in order to give Lebedev a peerage:
Two days before Johnson met Lebedev in March [he did this on March 19, right after telling us all to stay in our homes because of Covid-19, so this happened on March 17], the House of Lords appointments commission (Holac), which scrutinises all nominations, wrote to the prime minister. It is understood to have expressed concerns about Lebedev’s proposed peerage and asked Downing Street to reconsider.
The commission, made up of cross-party peers, carries out “propriety checks” on candidates. It does not have the power of veto. But it can suggest that a party come up with an alternative, which is what is understood to have happened in Lebedev’s case.
Peers were apparently alarmed following a confidential briefing from the UK security services. They told the commission Lebedev was viewed as a potential security risk because of his father, Alexander Lebedev, a one-time Moscow spy. During the late cold war period, Lebedev Sr worked undercover at the Soviet embassy in London. His real employer was KGB foreign intelligence.
Johnson ignored the concerns and Lebedev became a Lord.
Labour leader Keir Starmer called for Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to review all the reports on Lord Lebedev that Holac saw, after Russians in the UK came under suspicion in the wake of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Lebedev himself has supported publication of the material, saying, “I have nothing to hide.”
But Downing Street insisted that “all peerages are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission” – an assertion that failed to acknowledge that Holac can’t veto an appointment, which always remains within the gift of the prime minister.
And Johnson himself has denied overruling the concerns expressed by the security services.
If the documents are published and show that Johnson did indeed ignore concerns raised by the security services, then he has lied in his capacity as prime minister. If he uttered those words in Parliament, then he will have broken the Ministerial Code and his resignation will be required.
And the irony is that any security risk posed by Lebedev is tiny in any case – because Lords are not shown “classified” documents.
It seems clear that the Tory government is hiding something, and it seems clear that the only thing they have to hide is interference by Boris Johnson in UK security concerns.
Ellis has promised to publish the necessary information “promptly” on May 10, when Parliament reconvenes.
This will be after the local elections, and I wonder whether the delay is motivated by the possibility that it will influence voters against supporting the Tories. But then, why not just say, “This may affect the outcome of an election”?
Or would that be an admission of Johnson’s guilt?
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Boris Johnson and Evgeny Lebedev: 10 days after saying he saw no evidence that Russians were influencing UK politics, Johnson has elevated this Russian to the House of Lords.
Parliament has ordered the Tory government to publish confidential information on how Evgeny Lebedev, the son of a Russian spy, was offered a place in the House of Lords.
The Guardian revealed back in 2020 that Boris Johnson overruled concerns voiced by the security services in order to give Lebedev a peerage:
Two days before Johnson met Lebedev in March [he did this on March 19, right after telling us all to stay in our homes because of Covid-19, so this happened on March 17], the House of Lords appointments commission (Holac), which scrutinises all nominations, wrote to the prime minister. It is understood to have expressed concerns about Lebedev’s proposed peerage and asked Downing Street to reconsider.
The commission, made up of cross-party peers, carries out “propriety checks” on candidates. It does not have the power of veto. But it can suggest that a party come up with an alternative, which is what is understood to have happened in Lebedev’s case.
Peers were apparently alarmed following a confidential briefing from the UK security services. They told the commission Lebedev was viewed as a potential security risk because of his father, Alexander Lebedev, a one-time Moscow spy. During the late cold war period, Lebedev Sr worked undercover at the Soviet embassy in London. His real employer was KGB foreign intelligence.
Johnson ignored the concerns and Lebedev became a Lord.
Labour leader Keir Starmer called for Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to review all the reports on Lord Lebedev that Holac saw, after Russians in the UK came under suspicion in the wake of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Lebedev himself has supported publication of the material, saying, “I have nothing to hide.”
But Downing Street insisted that “all peerages are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission” – an assertion that failed to acknowledge that Holac can’t veto an appointment, which always remains within the gift of the prime minister.
And Johnson himself has denied overruling the concerns expressed by the security services.
If the documents are published and show that Johnson did indeed ignore concerns raised by the security services, then he has lied in his capacity as prime minister. If he uttered those words in Parliament, then he will have broken the Ministerial Code and his resignation will be required.
And the irony is that any security risk posed by Lebedev is tiny in any case – because Lords are not shown “classified” documents.
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Boris Johnson isn’t the only Tory minister facing serious consequences for their actions this week. It’s looking bad for Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey too.
Coffey has repeatedly refused to publish a DWP-commissioned report on disabled people’s experiences of the benefit system – so the Commons Work and Pensions Committee has given orders for its authors to provide a copy to Parliament, which will then be published.
The report, The Uses of Health and Disability Benefits was received by the Government in September 2020. The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) had interviewed disabled people about their experiences of receiving PIP, ESA and Universal Credit.
The committee last month gave the Secretary of State one final chance to publish the report, which she herself admitted fell within the Government’s own protocol for publication.
But Coffey said she would not be reconsidering her decision.
Why not? It seems likely that researchers at NatCen, who wrote the report, found that people on disability and other health-related benefits were overwhelmingly negative about their experience of the system under Tories including Coffey and her forerunners, going right back to Iain Duncan Smith.
NatCen has been ordered to provide a copy of its report by January 27.
“After repeated obstruction from the Secretary of State to keep from public view a piece of work that falls within the Government’s own protocol for publication, we have reached the end of the road,” said Work and Pensions Committee chairman Stephen Timms.
“We would have much rather the DWP had done the right thing and published the report itself, so it is with regret that we must now take the highly unusual step of using our parliamentary powers to obtain a copy from NatCen and publish it ourselves.
“We have been forced to do this to ensure that the reality of disabled people’s experiences of the benefits system can see the light of day.”
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Therese Coffey: it seems she’s been too busy having a good time (in line with many of her Cabinet colleagues, we’ve learned) to publish a report on the quality of her work as it relates to people with disabilities who claim benefits.
Tough luck, Therese!
The Tory Work and Pensions Secretary has been sitting on a report on how claimants are affected by the way she runs disability benefits – presumably because it is damning, even though (allegedly) watered-down.
The benefits concerned are those received by people with long-term illnesses and disabilities: Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Universal Credit (UC).
Well, she won’t be able to warm her backside on it for very much longer because the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, sick of waiting for her to pull her finger out, has given her an ultimatum.
It is: publish the report by January 11 or we will publish it in spite of you.
The report falls within the government’s protocol for publication so there really is no legitimate reason for any delay.
Committee chairman Stephen Timms (Labour) said:
The Secretary of State has consistently failed to give the Committee a good reason why this piece of research should not be made public. She even admits that it falls within the Government’s own protocol for publication.
The continued refusal to publish the results of the research, as promised to the participants who gave up their time, will do further damage to disabled people’s trust in the Department—which is already in short supply.
The Secretary of State now has a final opportunity to think again and publish the research. If not, the Committee is firmly agreed that we will be left with no choice but to publish the report ourselves.
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This is a Nazi-style bid to turn our newspapers into propaganda sheets.
(And let’s be honest – most of them are more than halfway there already.)
The big surprise about the story is that it has been broken by the Daily Heil!
According to that rag, Priti Patel – for it is her again – has been consulting on a plan to change the Official Secrets Act in order to remove protections for reporters who are handed leaked documents that may embarrass the Tory government.
The Act’s provisions are intended to protect the UK against agents of foreign governments. Attacking UK-based journalists is clearly a perversion of such legislation but Patel won’t be worried about that.
The Mail‘s story states:
Under a consultation run by Priti Patel’s Home Office, which closes later this week, reporters who handle leaked documents would not have a defence if charged under new laws designed to clamp down on foreign agents.
There’s been a consultation? And it closes in a matter of days? This must be one of those fake consultations that the Tories do all the time – they claim to have been consulting while deliberately not telling anybody about it.
Human rights organisations and the Law Commission, which drew up the proposals, say there should be a ‘public interest defence’ included to prevent the prosecution of journalists who receive leaked documents.
But in a paper released for the consultation, the Home Office said such a move would ‘undermine our efforts to prevent damaging unauthorised disclosures, which would not be in the public interest’.
Who says what’s in the public interest and what isn’t? Usually it’s the courts, in cases of serious disagreement – but the power of the courts is being curbed in new Tory legislation so Patel is effectively giving the Tories ultimate power over the press.
This Writer won’t be affected, though. I may comment on what it means when the contents of leaked documents are published but I don’t receive those documents so I can’t publish them.
Tough luck, Patel! You might turn your supporters in the mainstream media against you but you won’t get critics like Vox Political.
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One man and his crony: Boris Johnson (right) and Priti Patel – who seems to be dressed up like a dog’s dinner for reasons unknown.
Here’s another crony of Boris Johnson who seems to get preferential treatment despite an ever-lengthening series of blunders: Priti Patel.
She was faced with serious allegations of bullying civil service staff at three different government departments in March, including claims from a former Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.
The Cabinet Office launched an inquiry and said that it would be for Johnson – as prime minister – to decide whether to publicise its conclusions.
Well, that inquiry ended some time ago and Johnson has shown no sign of telling us what it decided.
Should we draw our own conclusions?
One person who thinks it would be better if we were just told is Lord Evans of Weardale, the former head of MI5 and now adviser on standards in public life. He said:
When you have got these allegations that have not really been put to bed then it’s easy to say they’ve just been brushed over and I don’t think that’s ideal for public trust and public standards.
The Cabinet Office has done some form of investigation. It has not been published so it is very difficult to know whether there was something here or whether there wasn’t.
And still the uncertainty drags on.
Meanwhile, Patel has legislated to remove our ability to move freely from the UK to other countries. She has tried to have asylum-seeking migrants sent to concentration camps on St Helena or Ascension Island. She allegedly encouraged attacks on “activist lawyers” who stand up for such asylum-seekers’ legal rights. The list of her lunacies lengthens every day.
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The Conservative government has stopped telling us how many people are dying of Covid-19 every day because it contradicts the plan to lift lockdown.
I mean: because Health Secretary Matt Hancock has demanded a review of the way the figures are calculated.
But here’s a suggestion: why can’t the figures be published using the current system, until this review is completed and a new method put into practice if necessary?
ITV’s news story says researchers have claimed the way deaths are reported across England has led to an “over-exaggeration” of the figures due to “statistical flaws”.
This suggests that the figures as reported are higher than the actual number of deaths.
But whenever I’ve seen the figures modified, it is the new total that is higher.
So I doubt the sincerity of these so-called “researchers'” remarks. And I distrust the Tories’ reason for suppressing the numbers altogether.
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Parliament’s committee responsible for publishing the report on Russian interference in UK politics may be reconvened “imminently” – according to Downing Street sources.
Do you believe that?
Or do you think that, even if it happens, it’s only because Boris Johnson has found another way to delay the report – or hide what it says?
According to the BBC, the government is denying that Johnson has stalled the process:
A source close to the process has told me they are hopeful the committee will be confirmed by Downing Street “imminently”.
That would remove the most significant obstacle to the Russia report being published and means it could happen soon.
Number 10, meanwhile, has denied deliberately stalling the process.
The PM’s spokesman said the government wanted to get the committee up and running as soon as circumstances allowed.
But the spokesman said the last few months has seen an unprecedented situation in government and Parliament.
So the Covid crisis has made Johnson so busy he hasn’t had time to restore this vital organisation that could release damning information?
What’s he been busy doing? Changing nappies?
Boris Johnson says he has ‘changed a lot of nappies’ during lockdown https://t.co/VVFUcrCs8d
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