Rudd didn’t resign over her office’s handling of the Windrush generation, nor did she resign because of the government’s deportation aims. Rather, she resigned because she had “inadvertently misled” lawmakers about the deportation targets—first by claiming they didn’t exist, and then by saying she wasn’t aware of their existence. Both apparently proved to be false—though Rudd claimed she did not see or approve targets for removal, a private letter she wrote to May about the targets in January 2017 refers to such targets directly.
As was the case with previous cabinet resignations, it wasn’t the scandal itself that proved to be the sackable offense—it was lying about it. Priti Patel, the former international development secretary, resigned in November after making false claims that the U.K.’s Foreign Office was aware of her undisclosed visits with Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a family holiday (they weren’t). A month later, former first secretary of state Damien Green resigned because of “inaccurate and misleading”statements he made about the presence of pornography on his office computer. The remaining ministers to have left May’s cabinet include former Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, who resigned in November over allegations of sexual harassment, and former Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire, who resigned in January for health reasons. [...]
Still, Javid’s appointment marks a major shift in other ways. Not only will he be the first ethnic minority to serve as Home Secretary, but he will also shake up the political balance of May’s cabinet: Though Javid, like his predecessor, voted to remain in the European Union, he is also a self-dubbed Euroskeptic and opposes the U.K. remaining in the EU’s customs union.
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