Robert Peston Robert Peston

Cummings’s fury at the legal bid to block Jamaican deportations

If you thought Boris Johnson’s and Dominic Cummings’s culture war against the so-called London elite had ended with his decisive election victory, that it was simply a useful campaigning trope, you may have to rethink.

Because Johnson’s chief aide Cummings reinforced the government’s excoriation of media and lawyers when addressing Downing Street officials this morning, in the words of one official present.

Cummings described last night’s Court of Appeal suspension of the deportation of criminals to the Caribbean as ‘a perfect symbol of the British state’s dysfunction’.

He said there must be ‘urgent action on the farce that judicial review has become’.

The Tory manifesto promised a review of the judicial review process – a pledge that has unsettled some in the legal profession.

Cummings said to officials that the support for the court ruling among MPs and hacks ‘shows they still haven’t understood what the last few years has been about, the country outside London is horrified but rich London is cheering the lawyers’.

The Court of Appeal was persuaded that some of those who were being deported may not have been able to defend themselves, because they may not have been able to use their mobile phones due to a malfunctioning mast.

Robert Peston is ITV’s Political Editor. This article originally appeared on his ITV news blog.

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