Home Office officials raised concerns over a series of secretive meetings Suella Braverman held with an influential rightwing backbench MP weeks before she was forced to resign over leaking sensitive information to him, the Observer has been told.
In addition, sources have claimed that the home secretary appears to have instructed officials to look at potentially implementing hardline proposals cooked up by a rightwing thinktank that would in effect prohibit “genuine refugees” from settling in the UK, a move that threatens an even more uncompromising approach to asylum seekers.
Senior officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say even before she was forced to quit there was already significant disquiet over Braverman’s dealings with Sir John Hayes, leader of the “anti-woke” Common Sense Group of rightwing MPs.
The pair had held a number of meetings in the Home Office’s Marsham Street HQ after she became home secretary for the first time last month.
Weeks later, Braverman stood down after admitting leaking sensitive government information to Hayes and his wife via her personal email address. She was reinstated by Rishi Sunak days later.
“There’s a dynamic around her leaking stuff. Civil servants had been raising concerns about her meetings with that backbencher [Hayes]; she was having them at Marsham Street,” a Home Office source said.
A separate Whitehall source said Hayes spoke openly to parliamentary colleagues about being sent sensitive material on immigration policy from Braverman.
Furthermore, the Observer has been told that before her resignation, Home Office officials were tasked by Braverman to study a report by the rightwing Policy Exchange thinktank with a view to possibly implementing its recommendations in an attempt to tackle Channel crossings.
Entitled Stopping the Small Boats: a “Plan B”, the report states: “Genuine refugees would be resettled in a safe state other than the UK,” a move that would appear at odds with the UN 1951 refugee convention of which Britain was a founding signatory.
The report advocates the deportation of asylum seekers arriving by small boat should not be confined to Rwanda.
It states: “People attempting to enter the UK on small boats will be deported to a location outside the UK whether the Channel Islands, sovereign bases in Cyprus or Ascension Island” where their asylum claims will be considered.
One of the report’s authors is Simon Murray, who was appointed a Home Office minister responsible for “migration and borders legislation” several weeks ago.
On Saturday night, however, the Home Office rejected claims that officials had been asked by Braverman to look into the Policy Exchange findings, describing them as “untrue”.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The options the home secretary is considering are deeply worrying and out of step with the majority of the public who support giving refugees protection.
“Most of those coming to the UK on small boats are fleeing the unimaginable horror of war, conflict and persecution. They must not be expelled but given a fair hearing on UK soil.
“Prime ministers since Winston Churchill have committed to the refugee convention – which we were a founding signatory of – and we should be strengthening our commitment, not seeking to break from it.”
In another development, Braverman has been accused of failing to act on legal advice that the government was illegally detaining asylum seekers at a processing centre and not signing off on providing accommodation for them.
She received advice at least three weeks ago that asylum seekers were being detained for unlawfully long periods at the Manston centre in Kent, sources told the Sunday Times.
The newspaper said Braverman, the former attorney general, was advised that the situation needed to be resolved urgently by rehousing the asylum seekers in alternative accommodation.
Asylum seekers are meant to be held at the facility, which opened in January, for 24 hours while they undergo checks before being moved into immigration detention centres or asylum accommodation, currently hotels.
Officials have confirmed about 3,000 people are being held there on a site designed for 1,000 with a maximum of 1,600. This number is larger than any prison or immigration detention facility in the UK.
The Home Office has not denied that the legal advice stated that the law had been broken at Manston but told the Sunday Times suggestions that Braverman had “deliberately ignored” it were “completely baseless”.
“The home secretary has taken urgent decisions to alleviate issues at Manston and source alternative accommodation. It is right that we look at all available options so decisions can be made based on the latest operational and legal advice.”
In other developments, Labour is proposing a Commons debate to force the government to share the relevant government security and risk assessments regarding Braverman, as well as the information given to Sunak before her reappointment, with parliament’s intelligence and security committee.
Labour will try to force the government to publish its assessments of Braverman’s security breach.
Sunak has resisted demands to launch an inquiry into her breaking of the ministerial code.
But now both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have raised “national security” concerns and called for a Cabinet Office probe.
Labour will push ministers to share risk assessments of this and other alleged leaks, as well as the information given to Sunak before he reinstalled her at the Home Office, with a “humble address” motion in parliament.
Braverman has so far refused to appear before MPs to explain what happened.
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: “Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman cannot keep running away from these questions. It is far too serious for that, and raises serious doubts about the prime minister’s judgment.
“People need to know they can trust the home secretary with highly sensitive information and our national security. Rishi Sunak’s decision to reappoint Suella Braverman was deeply irresponsible.
“Labour will use every parliamentary mechanism open to force government to come clean over her reappointment, to get answers and to require detailed documents to be released to the intelligence and security committee.”
