Supporters of former Home Secretary Priti Patel yesterday protested when a Foreign Office Twitter account ‘liked’ a post labelling her ‘unspeakably nasty’.
They claimed it was additional proof of the resistance Miss Patel encountered from the Government ‘Blob’ – Whitehall personnel hostile to policy.
The official Foreign Office account ‘liked’ a tweet by Labour MP Zarah Sultana which tagged Miss Patel, who departed as Home Secretary when Liz Truss became Tory leader.
Her tweet said: ‘Good riddance. You were an unspeakably brutal Home Secretary and won’t be missed by anybody with a shred of humanity.’
An ally of Miss Patel said the ‘like’ was ‘insane’. They alluded to Whitehall’s resistance to the strategy of sending certain migrants to the African country of Rwanda.
The supporter insisted: ‘They never backed Rwanda or any deportations.
‘The Foreign Office resisted the Rwanda strategy at every point.’
The ‘like’ was soon reversed. A Foreign Office official said: ‘This was a human mistake and was unliked as soon as the issue was identified.’
The Daily Mail reported earlier this week that sources close to Miss Patel, seen in the image, had warned that civil employees were thwarting measures to tighten down on Channel migrants.
She had created plans to stop economic migrants from abusing British legislation against modern slavery.
However, sources said that top Home Office officials had “sat on” the proposals. One source even said that Matthew Rycroft, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, had obstructed them.
According to sources, the Foreign Office tweet demonstrated again again how the Government apparatus opposed Miss Patel’s objectives.
A number of internal letters about the plans to transport “irregular migrants”—including those who entered the UK after crossing the Channel—thousands of miles to Rwanda had strained relations between her department and the Foreign Office.
The documents came to light as a result of a High Court judicial challenge to the Rwanda policy.
Foreign Office officials had told the Home Office that there were severe concerns about Rwanda’s record on human rights.
It alludes to Left-wing and “progressive” authorities who disagreed with his plans to reform educational requirements and standards.