Thread by @paulwaugh

Priti Patel is under fire for her handling of the Ukrainian refugee crisis, but the buck stops with Boris Johnson

My long read for @theipaper Weekend🧵
inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

The piece has some strong defences of the Home Secretary, who has shifted her stance on refugees as the Ukraine crisis has grown.
But it also has some withering criticism of both her and @BorisJohnson.

I've been told that early in the crisis, an email chain in the Home Office contained a memo setting out that the Home Secretary's priority was UK national security.

“The memo set out that the Home Secretary is absolutely clear that her priority and the priority of the Home Office is not to provide safe haven. It is to protect the security of the United Kingdom,” one Whitehall source tells me.

inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

“It was made crystal clear. The Home Secretary is not in the business of providing homes for tens of thousands of Ukrainians," the Whitehall source said.

inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

A Home Office source hit back hard: "[It's] total nonsense that she said anything like that. There is a balance between security and openness, obviously. Any options put forward wouldn't include high side analysis from security services...

inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

“...I know people like to portray her as some kind of villain but [we’ve taken] 20,000 Afghans, 97,000 Hong Kongers.”
Another ally added: “There’s a lot of stuff written in the media which is deeply unfair, either to the Home Secretary or to officials."

inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

Moreover, some point to the lack of supported housing available for refugees. There is a real shortage of accommodation for existing asylum seekers (tho critics say that's partly cos of the big backlog built up in recent years)

One former insider says there's a structural problem: "The Home Office is a huge oil tanker that is hard to turn around, it’s not used to being dynamic. It’s not who is crap and who isn’t, it’s the size and scale of the Home Office is so clunky.”

But the criticism is also fierce. One Labour MP said: “She’s [John] Prescott without the brains.”
A Tory agreed: “Prescott’s strength was that he always had a real grounding in the party and in the politics of the situation. She dog whistles..."
inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

“Because she’s not very good, and her instincts are to restrict [numbers], that means every time something’s got to shift, it is taking ages to get to brief her, ages for her to understand it, for her to agree it," a Whitehall source says.

inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

“And when it turns to shit, she then blames everybody else, and you then move to the next incremental change and when that turns to shit, she blames everybody else.”

inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…

But ultimately it is @BorisJohnson who has really led the line that protecting the UK's borders comes first and that security concerns are a priority.

Indeed, as @SamCoatesSky reported yday, No.10 seems to hv blocked attempts by Patel to shift policy

news.sky.com/story/ukraine-…

One Tory says buck stops with Johnson:
"You’ve got Liz Truss and Priti Patel and all the other Muppets, Nadine Dorries is front and centre next to him on the bench at PMQs. It’s just it’s quite embarrassing, really. We used to be a serious country.”

inews.co.uk/opinion/priti-…