James Cleverly tasked with rebuilding ‘rudderless’ Home Office

James Cleverly has been tasked with rebuilding what one insider has described as a “demoralised and rudderless” Home Office – as the fate of the flagship Rwanda policy hangs in the balance.

Staffers in the Home Office and wider refugee sector hope Mr Cleverly will take the department in a different direction, after the Prime Minister sacked Suella Braverman over her unauthorised article criticising the way pro-Palestinian protests had been policed.

Still, there will be some policy consistency under Mr Cleverly’s leadership, with the Conservative Party saying he will now be the one to “stop the boats”.

During his tenure as foreign secretary, he publicly called for an “international response” to stem the flow of people to countries including the UK and also voted for the Illegal Migration Act, a controversial new law designed to ensure that anyone arriving by small boat is deported and barred from ever getting asylum in the UK.

But there are some distinctions between Mr Cleverly and his predecessor in their approach to the problem, which could lead to more than one Home Office pivot.

Perhaps the most explicit division is over the Home Office’s use of an RAF base to house asylum seekers, which Ms Braverman said would slash the £8m being spent each day on putting them up in hotels.

But RAF Wethersfield falls within Mr Cleverly’s Braintree constituency, and he has publicly voiced opposition to the plan, saying it was too remote and isolated to be “appropriate” for asylum accommodation.

Aid groups have already expressed hope this morning that his personal stance on Wethersfield will see the plan scrapped, with Care4Calais saying that his first act as home secretary should be to shut down the base “in his own backyard”.

Who is James Cleverly?

Born in Lewisham to Evelyn Suna Auber, a midwife from Sierra Leone, and small business owner Philip Cleverly, Mr Cleverly initially joined the army before his military career was cut short by injury.

He went on to study business at university and moved into magazine and digital publishing, eventually setting up his own company. Mr Cleverly remains part of the Territorial Army.

Before becoming an MP, he served as the London Assembly Member for Bexley and Bromley, on the Metropolitan Police Authority (the body which was responsible for scrutinising the force), as chairman of the London Fire Authority and as chair of the London Waste and Recycling Board.

He first stood as a candidate in 2002 local government elections, and again as the parliamentary candidate in Lewisham East in the 2005 Parliamentary elections.

He was elected as the MP for Braintree in 2015, and went on to serve as a minister in a range of international-facing roles, covering issues such as development and Brexit.

Mr Cleverly was education secretary for less than two months in 2022, before being appointed foreign secretary in September last year by Liz Truss.

Now, he moves from one great office of state to another, taking over the Home Office from Ms Braverman.

Mr Cleverly said it was an “honour” to be appointed as home secretary, adding that he was  “absolutely committed to stopping the boats as we promised, but also making sure that everybody in the UK feels safe and secure”.

Cleverly’s priority

The past leadership of the Home Office has left staff in the department “demoralised and rudderless”, one former Home Office civil servant said. They claimed Mr Cleverly would be wise to make “settling the department down his number one priority”.

“The Suella and Priti years have seen the Home Office stumble from one crisis to another, without any real strategic oversight or leadership from either home secretary,” they said.

“Instead of gripping the challenges, the response has usually been to come out swinging with empty, aggressive rhetoric. This usually just ended up causing more problems than it solved, as we’ve seen over the weekend with the protests.”

Their advice for Mr Cleverly was to “set a clear, deliverable vision and focus on actually getting things done, rather than just trying to outdo your last tweet or statement with yet more empty hand-wringing”.

Many of those in the UK’s refugee sector, which works regularly with the Home Office, welcomed the departure of Ms Braverman, with one aid worker calling her the “worst home secretary in history”.

But it is uncertain how far Mr Cleverly will go in distancing himself from her approach.

“We hope the new Home Secretary ditches the hateful words and demands the same of his ministers, but we aren’t optimistic there’ll be a marked change in the Government’s hostile policymaking that has created huge problems in the asylum system,” another aid source said.

First challenge

One of Mr Cleverly’s first challenges will be the Rwanda plan; the UK’s top court is due to make a final judgement on whether or not the policy is legal this week.

The plan – which would see the Government send people who arrive in the UK on small boats to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed, with no prospect of them ever being given asylum in the UK – has been in and out of the courts since last year.

If it gets the green light from the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Mr Cleverly will be tasked with attempting to get the first flights to Rwanda off the ground, and potentially preparing for any challenges to the verdict in the European courts.

But if the Home Office loses, Mr Cleverly will have to decide how to handle a significant defeat for the Government.

Unlike Ms Braverman – who suggested that she would seek to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) following its injunctions to block the first Rwanda flight last year – Mr Cleverly has said he does not feel it is necessary to leave the ECHR in order to control the UK’s borders.

Implications for Home Office

The appointment of Mr Cleverly may be interpreted as a snub to immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who has been front and centre of the Government’s approach to small boats.

But the ex-Home Office staffer said it was “no surprise” Mr Jenrick was not promoted following a series of public controversies and that giving him the job would have been a “disaster”.

Last week, Mr Jenrick came under fire after i revealed that he had blocked a charity from giving legal advice, clothing and hair cuts to asylum seekers in Home Office accommodation.

It followed an order to paint over Mickey Mouse murals at a centre for child asylum seekers in Kent.

The move was widely criticised including by Tory MPs who were “appalled” by the move and ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage who called it “mean”.