A top civil servant who Priti Patel tried to get rid of is facing a furious backlash amid claims he ‘obstructed’ successive home secretaries.
Ms Patel is said to have tried to move permanent secretary Sir Philip Rutnam out of the department after they clashed.
Sir Philip previously faced calls for him to resign in 2018 over the Home Office’s handling of the Windrush scandal.
Now former Home Office insiders have accused the mandarin of being ‘nowhere to be seen’ during the crisis despite being ‘paid more than the prime minister’.
It came as Ms Patel faced fresh allegations of bullying having already been accused of belittling Home Office civil servants.
The new claims, published by The Times, span a five year period and relate to her previous ministerial roles at the Department for Work and Pensions and then the Department for International Development.
Sir Philip Rutnam, permanent secretary at the Home Office, is facing a backlash over his handling of the Windrush scandal
Ms Patel is said to have tried to move him out of the department after they clashed over her attempts to make changes under Boris Johnson’s leadership
Former ministers and officials alleged that she had ‘dressed down’ staff in front of their colleagues and asked: ‘Why is everyone so f***ing useless?’
It was also claimed that she had sent ‘aggressive’ emails to staff in the ‘middle of the night’.
Ms Patel’s allies have vehemently denied the bullying accusations and claimed the Home Secretary was the victim of ‘malicious gossip’.
It was reported earlier this week that Ms Patel had tried to get rid of Sir Philip from his role at the Home Office.
Sir Philip is said to have raised concerns about her treatment of staff with the Cabinet Office.
Allies of Ms Patel told The Telegraph that the Home Secretary had tried to remove Sir Philip because they are ‘just not the right fit’.
They claimed he had tried to block appointments and undermine Ms Patel in Cabinet, ‘obstructing’ the moves she wanted to make.
The newspaper said that Ms Patel and Sir Philip had initially fallen out last September after the latter allegedly tried to stand in the way of an announcement that more police would be allowed to carry tasers.
Sir Philip joined the department as its top civil servant in April 2017 and was in post during the Windrush scandal. He faced calls to resign over the issue in 2018.
One former Home Office insider today claimed in comments reported by Politico that Sir Philip was ‘nowhere to be seen’ during the immigration scandal.
‘Then, just like now, he oversaw a culture of politicised leaks and egotistical briefing from the department and has managed to avoid taking any responsibility or face any consequence for the Windrush scandal, instead staying in the role he gets paid more than the prime minister for, and throwing his deputy and others under the bus,’ they said.
Official government data on high earners in the Civil Service suggests Sir Philip is paid a salary of at least £190,000.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, reportedly recently tried to get Sir Philip removed from his post at the Home Office
Sir Philip told the Home Affairs Select Committee in November 2018 that he felt ‘personal responsibility for everything that happens in the Department’.
He also said he felt ‘personal responsibility for the fact that we did not spot the Windrush events sooner’.
However, he said that was ‘not the same, though, as saying that I am responsible in the sense that I should have done something in real time to prevent it’.
Asked today to comment on the claims made against Sir Philip, the Home Office referred back to the statement it issued yesterday in response to the claims made against Ms Patel and said it would not be commenting any further.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We have not received any formal complaints and we take the welfare of our staff extremely seriously.’
Who is Priti Patel, the Home Secretary who made a shock return to the government after Boris Johnson won power?
Priti Patel was brought back in to the heart of Government by Boris Johnson last July, less than two years after quitting the Cabinet in disgrace.
The daughter of Gujarati Ugandan Asians, she picked up her Tory values and work ethic from her parents.
The right-winger and vocal Brexiteer’s maternal family was originally from Gujarat in India, before moving to Uganda in the early 20th century and prospered in business.
They moved to the UK in the 1960s, before the East African nation’s 80,000 Asian community was were expelled by the murderous dictator Idi Amin in 1972.
Priti Patel is pictured as a baby with her mother Anjana, who along with her father Sushil initially lodged in one small room in North London while he completed his studies in engineering
Her parents, Sushil and Anjana, initially lodged in one small room in North London while he completed his studies in engineering.
Eventually, they were able to buy a small house in Harrow and used that to secure a bank loan for their first shop, a newsagent in Tottenham.
Priti and her younger sister and brother were frequently called upon to work alongside their parents in the several shops and sub-post offices they ran in Nottingham, Ipswich and Norwich.
When Priti became secondary school age, the family bought an upmarket chocolate shop in Hertfordshire where there were good state schools, including Watford Grammar where she was head girl.
She later got a degree in economics, sociology and social anthropology at Keele University and a post-graduate diploma in government and politics at Essex.
Priti Patel’s fury at official blocking police from eco mob crackdown as Home Secretary says staff are dragging their feet on tougher action just days after officers let Extinction Rebellion tear up Cambridge lawn
Priti Patel fell out with Home Office officials after she accused them of dragging their feet over tougher action against eco-warrriors, it emerged last night.
The Home Secretary wanted them to look into ways to change police powers to stop protesters bringing cities to a standstill, a Government source said.
But she felt they were raising objections to reforms which could have helped the police tackle organisations such as Extinction Rebellion.
It comes just days after police stood by when the protest group ripped up the lawn outside a Cambridge college.
Priti Patel (right) fell out with officials after she accused them of dragging their feet when she asked them to look at ways to change police powers to stop protesters, it has emerged. Left are Extinction Rebellion members during a demonstration at the Science Museum in London
It is thought that Miss Patel wants to include the new measures in the Police Powers and Protection Bill expected to be brought to Parliament in the summer. They would not include the use of force against peaceful protesters, but would be designed to ensure individuals can get to work and not see their businesses forced to shut.
It emerged yesterday that Miss Patel had tried to move her most senior civil servant in the Home Office, permanent secretary Sir Philip Rutman, following ‘genuine disagreements’ between the pair.
But sources denied claims that she had ‘bullied and belittled’ officials, or that she had made unreasonable demands or created an ‘atmosphere of fear’. And the Home Office said ‘no formal complaints’ had been made.
On Tuesday police came under fire for failing to stop a group of eco-warriors as they ripped up the lawn outside Trinity College in Cambridge. That officers let the protest continue undisrupted without making arrests was described as ‘an affront not only to the law-abiding public but to democracy itself’.
At the present there is little police can do to tackle XR until they actually start their protest. Miss Patel is understood to have asked officials to draw up plans to change the law to allow the police to intervene earlier.
For example, XR protesters like to chain themselves to cars. The Home Secretary wanted to know if there was a way the police could intervene if they see people carrying chains, padlocks and XR placards – such as by confiscating the items.
Similarly, she wanted to know whether police could intervene to stop XR protesters carrying concrete blocks. Officials were said to have dragged their feet in coming up with proposals.
A Government source said there was no suggestion that force could be used against peaceful protesters.
On Monday Extinction Rebellion protesters ripped up the lawn outside Trinity College at Cambridge while police stood by
Miss Patel is understood to have asked officials to draw up plans to change the law to allow the police to intervene earlier (pictured is the Trinity College lawn after the protest on Monday)
The Home Secretary (pictured) is also said to have wanted to know whether police could intervene to stop XR carrying concrete blocks but officials were said to have dragged their feet in coming up with proposals