London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Jul 21, 2025

Is Priti Patel vicious or stupid? It’s a fine line for Ukrainian refugees

Is Priti Patel vicious or stupid? It’s a fine line for Ukrainian refugees

The home secretary’s mix of incompetence and cruelty has come to the fore in this war
You can only imagine the kompromat that Priti Patel must have on the prime minister. As international development secretary in Theresa May’s government, she had been sacked for going rogue with her own foreign policy. Her flight back to the UK from Kenya had been tracked every bit as closely as those made by Russian oligarchs today. That would have been the end of their career for most politicians. But not Priti Vacant. When Boris Johnson became prime minister, he promoted her to home secretary.

Then came the inquiry that found Patel guilty of breaking the ministerial code for bullying staff. That again should have been enough for instant dismissal. Instead The Suspect ordered colleagues to protect “The Prittster” at all costs. And so she survived; to bumble on with her characteristic mix of incompetence and viciousness. No more so than during the current war in Ukraine.

While most other government departments have upped their game over the past weeks, the Home Office has been a national embarrassment. While other European countries have opened their borders to welcome refugees, the UK went out of its way to make it almost impossible for any Ukrainians to reach this country: from not disclosing where most of the visa application centres were situated to making sure those that were advertised were closed. Cue hundreds of refugees being sent on pointless journeys from Calais to Lille to Paris. And back.

None of this has gone down well with MPs on either side of the house. On Monday, Vacant had managed to give the Commons the wrong information about which visa application centres were open and where they were – one hesitates to say she lied, as she’s genuinely stupid enough not to be across the finer details of what her department is up to.

The following day, she had gone awol during an urgent question about the Home Office’s mishandling of the refugee crisis and let a junior immigration minister take the hit instead. Not that Kevin Foster seemed to mind. He went on Twitter to say that refugees could always take advantage of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. Because picking fruit would help take their mind off the war.

On Thursday, Patel did bother to come to the Commons in person to answer yet another urgent question on refugees. Partly because she needed to reassure Tory MPs that she had at least some idea what was going on; partly because this time she actually had something new to say.

Though she did look initially a bit bewildered. She was under the impression – as most of us had been – that her sole role was to win favour with the Tory right by being beastly to foreigners; something at which she excels. Vacant couldn’t quite get her head around the fact that all of a sudden every Tory backbencher – with the exception of Edward Leigh and Daniel Kawczynski – had gone soft on refugees.

But Patel gathered herself and ploughed on with the script. To make things easier, refugees with Ukrainian passports and family in the UK would now be allowed to apply for their visas online. Quite how this would work for refugees whose passports were lost or missing in the chaos of war, she didn’t say. Nor how people without data roaming on their phones would manage to upload their visa applications. Even assuming they could still manage to charge their phones.

In any case, none of this could start until next Tuesday as the Home Office needed to ensure all necessary security measures were in place. Though, given that the Russians had been planning the invasion for months, you’d have thought they had all the spies they wanted in place in the UK without trying to pass a few off as Ukrainian refugees.

This was a start, said Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary. But why had it taken yet another urgent question to shame Patel into action at the dispatch box? And why was there still no clear humanitarian pathway for refugees without immediate family in the UK? For reasons best known to herself, Cooper went along with the security rhetoric. Almost as if Labour was terrified of being seen to be weak on immigration. Even though every other country in Europe was taking unlimited numbers of refugees without visas. And even though the majority of people in the UK are in favour of this country doing the same. Labour’s response is to be a bit nicer than the Tories, but not too much.

Vacant, however, was a model of indignation. Contrary to appearances, she hadn’t been dragged to the Commons. She had been gagging to be asked. It’s just that she was a little shy and didn’t want to appear too pushy. Patel: the model of modesty. And the Tories had a “world-beating” record on refugees. This one again. No matter how often she and Boris repeat it, it doesn’t make it true. The UK may score well in the narrow band of “resettled refugees”, but on refugees in general, we’re hopeless. In proportion to population size, we barely make the top 20 of the most welcoming European countries.

Then came the moment that – temporarily at least – silenced the entire chamber. The visas and the bureaucracy were actually doing the refugees a favour, Patel continued. Because if we had an open border policy and let in as many as wanted to come, then we’d have a Windrush situation where people couldn’t prove they had leave to remain.

This was Vacant at either her most vicious or her most stupid. Because it wasn’t the lack of paperwork that was the problem for the Windrush generation; it was the hostile environment that sought to deport people who were legally entitled to be here – the lack of full paperwork was just a means to that end. A hostile environment policy dreamed up by Theresa May in 2012 and slavishly pursued by Patel a decade later.

Most MPs were in a forgiving mood, though. Ready to congratulate Patel on her baby steps towards humanity, rather than to castigate her for the all too obvious shortcomings in her plans. There again, there was every chance that the home secretary would be back in the Commons to explain another policy disaster in the coming weeks. Time was on their side. If not on the side of those fleeing the war.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Defends Attorney General Pam Bondi Amid Epstein Memo Backlash
Renault Shares Drop as CEO Luca de Meo Announces Departure Amid Reports of Move to Kering
Senior Aides for King Charles and Prince Harry Hold Secret Peace Summit
Anti‑Semitism ‘Normalised’ in Middle‑Class Britain, Says Commission Co‑Chair
King Charles Meets David Beckham at Chelsea Flower Show
If the Department is Really About Justice: Ghislaine Maxwell Should Be Freed Now
NYC Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Antifada’ Remarks Spark National Debate on Political Language and Economic Policy
×