Tory Knives Are Out For Priti Patel After Her Week From Hell

Priti Patel, it is fair to say, has not had the best of weeks.

Last Sunday, she told The Sun that the government was about to unveil a brand new “humanitarian route” for Ukrainian refugees seeking to settle in the UK.

“This means anyone without ties to the UK fleeing the conflict in Ukraine will have a right to come to this nation,” the home secretary told the paper.

Within 24 hours, however, Boris Johnson had slapped her down by insisting that there was no change to the government’s policy, despite widespread criticism that it was not generous enough to those fleeing war in their homeland.

Sadly for Patel, her week only got worse from that point on. Here, HuffPost UK looks at how the home secretary’s performance has left her at odds with many of her Tory colleagues and out of touch with public opinion.

Visas – our inflexible friends 

It’s more than two weeks since Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine, sparking the largest refugee crisis seen in Europe since the second world war.

On Thursday, western officials revealed that, in the coming days, they are expecting four million men, women and children to flee their homeland to escape the Russian bombardment of their homeland.

The pressure on European countries to offer them asylum will only grow in the months ahead but, for now at least, the UK government’s approach is less generous than other nations.

Visa requirements have been waived across the EU, allowing refugees to enter member states unhindered. In the UK, however, they must first meet strict visa requirements before they are allowed to join family members in this country, an approach which has seen Britain accept far fewer refugees than other nations.

Priti Patel, backed up by Boris Johnson, it must be said, has repeatedly insisted that the need for security checks to be carried out on every refugee means that simply opening our doors to everyone is not an option.

But that approach has made the government appear unnecessarily bureaucratic at best and completely heartless at worst.

The situation was brutally illustrated on the cover of this week’s Spectator – not a publication known for its regular criticism of Conservative governments.

The Tory backlash

Conservative MPs have also made clear, in public and in private, their unhappiness with the performance of the government and, by implication, the home secretary.

At PMQs, former chief whip Julian Smith called for “a more humane approach to those women and men fleeing from Ukraine”.

Alec Shelbrooke, the usually-loyal Tory MP for Elmet and Rothwell, spoke for many of his colleagues with this stinging rebuke in the Commons.

“Does the home office recognise that this is a war the likes of which have not been seen for 80 years in Europe?,” he said. “We do not want to stand in this house and listen to plans and processes; we want dates and we want action.

“The home office must react far more quickly than it is doing and get to the point of hubs of people, get them processed and get them in. This is a disgrace. I ask the minister, when he leaves the dispatch box, to go back to the home office and tell it to get a grip!”

Sir Roger Gale, meanwhile, picked up on the chaos surrounding the government’s supposed visa centre in Calais, which turned out to be a pop-up facility 70 miles away in Lille. The veteran MP for North Thanet said Patel should resign for misleading parliament.

Other Tory MPs who have spoken to HuffPost UK have been even more vitriolic.

“It’s a shitshow,” said one, while another added: “We are all absolutely livid with Priti – the whole thing has been terrible.”

Tory MPs are also comparing Patel’s performance unfavourably with other ministerial colleagues who are seen to be having a good war.

One said: “If you look at the performance of the home office compared to the ministry of defence, there’s just no comparison.

″[Defence secretary] Ben Wallace and [armed forces minister] James Heappey have been tremendous throughout the crisis, whereas the ministers in the home office – including Priti – have been really poor.”

An out of touch government

It’s not just MPs’ anger that Patel needs to worry about. All the evidence is that the government is badly out of step with public opinion as well.

A YouGov poll yesterday revealed that six in ten people think the government is not doing enough to help Ukrainian refugees. Even more damningly for the home secretary, only 7 per cent think she wants to help those fleeing the war come to the UK.

The apparent disconnect between the government’s approach and the views of the British public was also highlighted by an opinion researcher who recently ran a focus group in the Midlands.

He told HuffPost UK: “It was remarkable and humbling to see the level of sympathy there is for Ukrainian refugees.

“When people are asked what the UK’s attitude should be, there’s nothing but an outpouring of sympathy and a desire to help as much as possible.”

‘Farcical and shameful’

Charities contacted by HuffPost UK also made clear their fury at the government’s approach to Ukrainian refugees.

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “The government’s response to refugees fleeing Ukraine has been farcical and shameful.

“But we should not be surprised – ministers have been chomping at the bit to destroy our refugee protection system and what we’re seeing in their response to Ukraine is the consequence of that.

“A highly-bureaucratic and restrictive family visa scheme to deal with a crisis in which more than two million people have been displaced is not only inadequate, it’s immoral.”

Zoe Gardner, policy and advocacy manager, at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “Our government should be helping refugees reach loved ones here as quickly as possible, by cutting red tape and granting people safe accessible routes here.

“Instead we’ve seen their cruel inaction push Ukrainians from pillar to post in Europe, and ultimately keep families apart.”

The lady is for turning

In response to the mounting criticism, Patel performed a major U-turn on Thursday by announcing an easing of the rules to make it easier for Ukrainian refugees to settle in the UK. It would appear to be too late to restore the home secretary’s battered reputation.

Boris Johnson has been supportive of his embattled colleague, at least in public, but it is significant that the PM felt the need to appoint former Tory MP Richard Harrington as the new minister for refugees, making him a life peer in the process.

In addition, levelling up secretary Michael Gove, the government’s very own Red Adair, has been tasked with implementing a new scheme which will allow companies or individuals to sponsor Ukrainian refugees who have no family in the UK.

Both moves are a clear sign of Johnson’s unhappiness with Patel’s performance.

‘Chaos after chaos’

The home secretary will most likely survive, at least in the short term, but the past week has left her more damaged than ever.

One former minister said there was still some support for her, but that MPs’ patience was wearing thin.

“It just seems like chaos after chaos in that department,” they said.

“Priti still has support from certain quarters – she’s good at going round the constituency parties and associations and pressing the flesh.

“She’s also got support from the right wing of the party, but the general view is that it’s either the home office that’s dysfunctional or that she simply isn’t up to it.”