A LABOUR minister has appeared to openly mock his boss, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, after she tried and failed to get him fired.
Migration minister Mike Tapp, who works in the Home Office and reports to Mahmood, found himself in hot water after he wrote a Times article suggesting foreign care workers should be exempt from her plans to tighten settlement rules.
Mahmood called on the Prime Minister to sack Tapp for writing the article which she believed to be out of step with her immigration policy, with which he was alleged to have breached the ministerial code.
A Home Office source told the BBC that Tapp should be sacked, adding: "He has taken possible ideas that the Home Secretary and her team were working on, and briefed them as his own to try to win a job in the new administration."
However, Keir Starmer’s Downing Street refused to immediately sack him as a minister, with the stand-off between the Home Office and No 10 being viewed as a test of Starmer’s authority during his final weeks in office.
Writing on social media on Friday morning, Tapp appeared to mock Mahmood over the incident.
Ok, morning all. It’s gone from “he broke the ministerial code” to “he stole my idea”. I have put my views across on a policy I’ve been working on for months (I have the receipts) in an Op Ed in the times. Give it a read, and let’s continue to discuss. I won’t be… pic.twitter.com/mpl2b98ReV
— Mike Tapp MP (@MikeTappTweets) June 26, 2026
“Ok, morning all,” he wrote. “It’s gone from ‘he broke the ministerial code’ to ‘he stole my idea’.
“I have put my views across on a policy I’ve been working on for months (I have the receipts) in an Op Ed in the times. Give it a read, and let’s continue to discuss.
“I won’t be intimidated to drop my views. Stay classy!”
Responding to one user who suggested he was “openly declaring war on his boss”, Tapp wrote: “Not at all, just responding to the mad briefings I’ve missed whilst living life.”
Tapp, who said that he was at a wedding in San Francisco in the US, had appeared to be referring to efforts by some within the UK Government to suggest he was not responsible for the ideas in his article.
In the piece, Tapp said his “strong belief” was that those already working in the UK care system should not have to wait longer to qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
He reportedly wrote that he had been working closely with officials to “develop a better approach than a blanket retrospective extension from five years to 10 years for everyone”.
Mahmood has proposed to double the time it takes for most migrants to qualify for permanent residence to a decade, including for claimants who are already in the UK but have not yet received ILR.
A Government source suggested on Thursday that by writing the article, Tapp was out of step with Home Office policy and had broken collective responsibility, a convention meaning ministers do not have policy disputes in public.
The Home Secretary is said to have been unaware of the piece and believes the Dover and Deal MP should be dismissed from his role as minister for migration and citizenship.
After his social media post on Friday, the BBC reported that Mahmood had restricted Tapp's access to government information.
Elsewhere, Jake Richards, a justice minister and whip, told Times Radio that it was not “wise” for Tapp to write the article.
He told the broadcaster: “Mike’s article in The Times sets out what his views are and some of the issues that he in the Home Office is exploring.
“It’s not particularly wise in my mind for junior ministers to set that out publicly. We are part of a team, he has done that and we will deal with that as a Government.”
It is ultimately up to the Prime Minister whether he sacks the migration minister, Richards also said.
Tapp has been loyal to Starmer even as his authority drained away across the wider Parliamentary Labour Party, and expressed disappointment when the Prime Minister announced his resignation on Monday, calling it a “sad day”.
The questions over his future come amid broader turmoil at the top of Government, after Andy Burnham emerged as the frontrunner to replace the Labour leader as early as July 17.
