Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is set to sack her migration minister Mike Tapp after he breached the ministerial code by writing an unauthorised newspaper article pushing for migrant care workers to be given special exemptions from her immigration overhaul.
Tapp, who serves as the MP for Dover and Deal, penned the piece for The Times without authorisation, arguing it was his “strong belief” that migrants should not face extended periods before being granted permanent settlement in Britain. The article directly contradicted the direction of Mahmood’s immigration reforms and publicly aired internal government policy discussions without permission.
A Whitehall insider told reporters that Tapp had crossed a clear line. “Mike Tapp is expected to be sacked for breaching the ministerial code,” the source said. “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.”
The incident comes at a sensitive moment for the government, with Mahmood in the midst of a significant overhaul of the immigration system and the Labour Party in the early stages of a leadership transition following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation. Publishing internal policy thinking without authorisation is a serious breach of collective cabinet responsibility and the ministerial code, which requires ministers to support government policy publicly regardless of any private reservations they may hold.
