AMBER RUDD RESIGNS: Sajid Javid Named New Home Secretary As Theresa May Dragged Into Scandal

Theresa May risks being further dragged into the Windrush immigration scandal after the shock resignation of Amber Rudd.

Ms Rudd became the fifth departure from the Cabinet since last year’s snap general election, after admitting she had ‘inadvertently’ misled MPs over the existence of targets for removing illegal immigrants.

Sajid Javid has been appointed as her replacement.

Ms Rudd stepped down the evening before she was due to make a statement in the House of Commons on the targets and illegal migration, as she faced increasing pressure over the handling of the Windrush ‘scandal’.

May under fire

Critics have rounded on the Prime Minister, who was Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016, demanding she answer questions in the Commons about her knowledge of migrant removal targets.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott told the BBC: ‘We want to talk to her about the aspects of the so-called hostile environment which she [May] was responsible for and led to the Windrush fiasco.

‘All roads lead back to Theresa May and her tenure as Home Secretary.’

Green MP Caroline Lucas tweeted that the PM had ‘lost her human shield and now looks very exposed herself’.

Ms Rudd said she took ‘full responsibility’ for not being aware of the existence of immigration targets (PA)

The Prime Minister said she was ‘very sorry’ to see Ms Rudd leave her post (PA)

Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson said Ms Rudd was ‘carrying the can’ for the Prime Minister as the person ‘originally responsible for the scandal’.

Ministers have rallied around their embattled party leader, with Chris Grayling, saying: ‘This is about sorting out a problem,’ he said, adding the Prime Minister ‘has not been home secretary for an extended period’ and wouldn’t be across department policy.

Ms Rudd’s resignation letter – in which she took ‘full responsibility’ for not being aware of the existence of targets – follows the resignations of former defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon, Priti Patel as international development secretary, Damian Green as first minister and James Brokenshire, who left his role as Northern Ireland secretary on health grounds.

The replacement

Sajid Javid has been appointed as the new Home Secretary.

Tory MP Sajid Javid said at the weekend of the Windrush scandal ‘it could have been me’

The Communities Secretary is seen as a uniting figure and issued a plea to ethnic minorities to look at the Government’s efforts to “put things right”.

In a newspaper interview this weekend, Mr Javid said of the Windrush fiasco: “It could have been me, my mum or my dad.”

“I was really concerned when I first started hearing and reading about some of the issues. It immediately impacted me. I’m a second-generation migrant. My parents came to this country … just like the Windrush generation.”

“They came to this country after the Second World War to help rebuild it, they came from Commonwealth countries, they were asked to come in to [do] work that some people would describe as unattractive – my dad worked in a cotton mill, he worked as a bus driver.”

Mr Javid backed remaining in the EU and would balance the scales with Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, who helped lead the Leave campaign.

Windrush

The pressure had been building on former banker Ms Rudd ever since the emergence of the ‘appalling’ treatment of Caribbean immigrants to the UK between the 1940s and 1970s – the so-called Windrush generation.

Concerns had been raised about the immigration status of the Windrush generation and there had been stories of people being forced to prove their near-continuous presence in the country in order to prove they were here legally.

Ms Rudd referred to the Windrush ‘scandal’ in her two-page resignation letter, admitting that people with a right to live in the UK had not always been treated ‘fairly and and humanely’.