Emma Haddad, former Home Office Director General for Asylum, has joined the human rights charity Amnesty International U.K. Haddad was previously viewed as a roadblock to the Government’s strict immigration policies – policies that Amnesty has openly criticised as “inhumane, racist and divisive”. The Telegraph has more.
Emma Haddad, who was the Home Office’s Director General for Asylum until October 2022, will help to oversee Amnesty International U.K., which has been campaigning against the Government’s attempts to halt Channel crossings and deport migrants to Rwanda.
Ms. Haddad’s appointment will intensify tensions between Conservative ministers and senior officials. A senior Tory said: “This demonstrates the extent of the institutional hurdles that we have been up against.”
One source described Ms. Haddad as “very difficult” and the “chief blocker” of ministers’ policies during her time at the Home Office. A Home Office source claimed that, during her time at the top of the department, the senior civil servant was “hostile” to the Government’s agenda on asylum, including a plan to move migrants out of taxpayer-funded hotel rooms and into large-scale accommodation.
The Home Office source said that Ms. Haddad also oversaw the introduction of “lenient” guidance in which asylum caseworkers were told they could not reject the testimony of a migrant caught lying.
Sources cited her move to Amnesty as evidence that Ms. Haddad was politically opposed to Conservative policies on asylum and immigration.
Responding to the claims, Ms. Haddad said: “As with any civil servant, my job was to serve the government of the day. All civil servants must abide by the Civil Service code and uphold the Civil Service’s core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.”
The row came as a poll by Public First found that almost half of pro-Leave voters who backed the Conservatives in 2019 believe the Government is not trying hard enough to deal with asylum and immigration.
The survey highlights a potential backlash brewing among the primary group of voters that Mr. Sunak had set out to win over with his pledge to stop illegal Channel crossings.
Ms. Haddad’s move to Amnesty will also heighten concerns about the “revolving door” between Whitehall and organisations that seek to influence Government policies.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which vets jobs taken by former senior officials, said the Home Office acknowledged that Ms. Haddad’s knowledge of the department’s “strategic thinking” on asylum and immigration would improve Amnesty’s “effectiveness as a lobbying organisation”.
It has banned Ms. Haddad from lobbying the Government for two years, and added: “Ms. Haddad has confirmed she will not have contact with the Government in this role and is inwardly focused.”
During Dame Priti Patel’s stint as Home Secretary, which ended in September 2022, scores of officials voiced their opposition to the Government’s Rwanda asylum deal on an internal Home Office online noticeboard – with some threatening to strike over the issue.
In March, mandarins complained after an email in Suella Braverman’s name to Conservative members blamed an “activist blob of Left-wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party” for blocking the Government’s plans to stop small boats carrying migrants across the Channel.
Worth reading in full.
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I am sure her values will fit in well.
she can also save her new employer a lot of legal fees by telling them all the problems advised by lawyers to the Home Office. That will help them no end.
Yes, minister. She would slot in nicely to a revised script.
Undoubtedly she’s also a ‘graduate’ of Common Purpose.
This only serves to underline that events are a result of conspiracy not cock-up. The Long March Through the Institutions is our true enemy and is happening daily under our noses.
” Haddad said: “As with any civil servant, my job was to serve the government of the day. All civil servants must abide by the Civil Service code and uphold the Civil Service’s core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.”
This is a lie.
As an ex-civil servant I can say without the risk of the slightest contradiction that senior civil servants, and the vast majority of the grunt grades, paid no heed to the Civil Service code and broke it as though it was part of their job description. In fact most civil servants would not even know there was a code.
Senior civil servants with integrity and honesty? More chance of finding rocking horse poo.
“One source described Ms. Haddad as “very difficult” and the “chief blocker” of ministers’ policies during her time at the Home Office.”
Which means she was a bloody nightmare but nobody had the balls to get rid, or even to work her out. Bunch of pussies.
It is safe to assume that anybody whose salary increases when a Labour government are in power (ie ALL public servants) will never act with political impartiality during their working day.
”Pro-migrant charity” eh? Well that’s a red rag to a bull and my cue to highlight this short article. If you move to country ( or your parents do and you’re born there ) which is predominantly made up of a completely different culture and religions to your own would you then go on to broadcast your hostile, anti-Christian or antisemitic views and label the indigenous population of that country as enemies? I know if I moved to a different country I wouldn’t go on like that if the culture were totally different. But it would seem the UK is a bastion of tolerance when it comes to this sort of thing. I’d be telling these ingrates if they don’t like it they can bugger off to some Muslim country then and send them packing, but they all seem eager enough to get over here don’t they?
”An Islamic youth organisation was permitted to register as a charity, despite having been accused of antisemitism.
The Cricklewood Muslim Youth Trust (CMYT) posted a tweet in December 2021 warning Muslims: “Keep away from the enemies of Allaah the Jews and Christians [sic]”.
The group, which aims to advance Islamic religious practices, was not registered as a charity at the time of the post, which has since been deleted.
The charity regulator has been subject to criticism for allowing the CMYT to register earlier this year.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism said it was “extraordinary” that the Charity Commission “should consider such an organisation fit for charitable status” while the National Secular Society said: “Something is wrong at the heart of charity law.”
https://www.thejc.com/news/news/muslim-group-accused-of-antisemitism-allowed-to-register-as-charity-by-watchdog-5PBjmg4HWcGuUE5mNYxkHV
Many thanks Mogs.
So, one assumes that all will be well now that she has gone, and the Home Office will proceed with expedition and illegals will be removed – in vast numbers. Or, perhaps not!
Yo! Gramsci.
Amnesty International. Another NGO which perhaps began with laudable aims, but has completely lost its way, or been captured.
Smash the state. From top to bottom. Destroy it all. Use any means necessary.
I say to people like this woman ————-How many people do you think can comfortably live on these small Islands? 70 million? 80 million? 100 million? ——-We are the most densely populated country in Europe now. Are you aware that in Hungary it is an offence to aid in any way an illegal migrant and you do time for it. This idea that if we don’t allow everyone and their dog to come to this country that struggles to house even it’s existing population means we are racist is PATHETIC Liberal Progressive One World Government CRAP.
She was a senior slithering serpent, hypocrisy is the sole job qualification
There was a time when senior civil servant’s job was to implement government policy. Why has this changed, and why wasn’t she sacked years ago?
Civil servant? Sacked? Oh my sides!
It would be a shame if she were to be a victim of myocarditis.
Wishful thinking but commendable.