Suella Braverman is set to scrap a pledge made by Theresa May to create a Commissioner for Migrants who would act as a champion for migrants coming to the UK. The controversial move which angered many Tory backbenchers was made in the wake of the Windrush Scandal where records of some people who had come to the UK legally from the West Indies before 1973 had been lost.
The move was reported in the Guardian who claimed it had come from sources within the Home Office in what seemed to be the latest attempt by left wing civil servants to destabilise Conservative attempts to control immigration.
The role of the commissioner, a position set up but not implemented by Mrs May when she was Prime Minister, was to champion migrant issues and find systematic problems in the migration system.
Another pledge made after the Windrush scandal which has reportedly been dropped is one to to increase the powers of the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration (ICIBI) to clamp down on officials dealing with migration and the border.
If true the move will be part of Ms Braverman’s ongoing efforts to bring immigration both legal and illegal under control.
She has already persuaded new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to introduce a tough new law to immediately deport people who arrive in this country illegally and go ahead with deportations to Rwanda.
The recommendations were accepted by Mrs May’s government three years ago following a formal inquiry by Wendy Williams examining the scandal under which the Home Office erroneously classified legal residents, many of whom arrived from Caribbean countries as children in the 1950s and 60s, as immigrants living in the UK illegally.
However, with immigration levels at record levels, Ms Braverman, formerly a Brexit spartan who held out against compromise with the EU, has vowed to deliver on “taking back control” of Britain’s borders.
This includes ending the mass illegal migration in small boats across the English Channel from France which has seen around 50,000 arrive this year.
But it is also understood that she only accepted retaking the Home Secretary job in Rishi Sunak’s government as long as she had a free hand to also reduce legal migration.
A source told the Guardian that Ms Braverman wants to “move on from the Windrush scandal” suggesting she thought it was “toxic.”
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