Shabana Mahmood and Keir Starmer in october last year.Keir Starmer is at loggerheads with home secretary Shabana Mahmood after she demanded he sack one of her ministers.
Mahmood wants junior Home Office minister Mike Tapp sacked after he wrote a newspaper article without running it past her first.
In the piece, which appeared in The Times, Tapp said migrant care workers should be exempt from tough new immigration rules.
He said it was his “strong belief” that they should not have to wait longer to apply for permanent settlement in the UK.
That appeared to be a breach of collective responsibility, which bans ministers from speaking out against government policy in public.
A government source said: “The home secretary has asked the prime minister for Mike Tapp to be sacked for breaching the ministerial code.”
But asked whether Tapp had lost his job, a No.10 spokesman said: “He’s a Home Office minister.”
The clash between the PM and a senior member of his own cabinet comes just three weeks before he is expected to be succeeded by Andy Burnham.
Mahmood is known to be one of the ministers who privately urged Starmer to announce timetable for his departure from Downing Street after Labour’s disastrous performance in the May 7 elections.
She is thought to be in the running for the job of chancellor in a Burnham cabinet.
A government source was scathing about Mahmood’s demand that Tapp be sacked.
The source told HuffPost UK: “This is pure Shabana. A batshit show of strength – and absolutely no class whatsoever.”
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