Oops. Has Suella Braverman accidentally reignited war with the civil service? On Tuesday, after the Home Secretary announced the details of her new Illegal Migration Bill, a triumphant email from CCHQ landed in the inboxes of Tory party members.
‘We tried to stop the small boat crossings without changing our laws,’ it declared. ‘But an activist blob of left-wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour party blocked us. So today we’re changing our laws – and bringing the small boat crossings to an end.’ The signature at the bottom of the email: Suella Braverman.
Unsurprisingly, the civil service didn’t take too kindly to being lumped into part of Suella’s ‘activist blob’. Dave Penman, general secretary of the civil service union the FDA, wrote a furious letter to Rishi Sunak complaining about Braverman’s email.
The email, he said, was ‘a direct attack on the integrity and impartiality of the thousands of civil servants who loyally serve the home secretary’. Penman accused the Home Secretary of breaking the ministerial code by failing to ‘uphold the political impartiality of the civil service’.
But now, the plot has thickened. CCHQ, it seems, has been gripped by a case of Whodunnit? Following PMQs, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson said that Braverman hadn’t actually given permission for that email to be sent out in her name. ‘She did not see, sign off or sanction that email being sent out,’ they said.
Regular readers of Steerpike will recall that this isn’t the first time Braverman has got on the wrong side of civil servants. While serving as Attorney General last year, she reportedly criticised ‘overcautious’ lawyers from blocking government policies. The ‘blob’ also apparently weren’t too impressed by Braverman leaking sensitive documents while serving under Liz Truss last Autumn.
Is this latest disagreement all a big misunderstanding? Or is a Suella stitch-up afoot? Mr Steerpike will keep you updated…
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