Home Office staff threaten to strike over Rwanda plan

Home Office staff will not "just sit back and take" the Rwanda deal and new small boats bill, and may strike if forced to implement measures they believe are unlawful

- LIZZIE DEARDEN

A union representing frontline workers receiving migrants crossing the English Channel and deciding their asylum claims says internal rows over the government’s plans could escalate into an industrial dispute. It would be the latest in a string of strikes by civil servants, with 130,000 people walking out of 132 government departments last month over pay and conditions.

Home Office workers have already voiced their opposition to Suella Braverman’s aim of detaining and deporting anyone arriving in a dinghy, regardless of the merits of their claims, in a series of staff meetings and angry posts on internal message boards. “You can’t do this kind of shit and still pretend that you are legal,” one asylum official previously told The Independent. “Being elected doesn’t give you the right to break the law.”

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents almost 16,000 staff across different Home Office departments and Border Force, said they were buckling under “constant downwards political pressure”, “intolerable” working conditions and fear of being forced to break the law. Head of bargaining Paul O’Connor said the union had already joined legal action against the Rwanda deal, and was “ruling absolutely nothing out in terms of responses to look after the welfare of our members”.