The Big Story
AMBER RUDD The Indefinable Politician
Remainer, green champion or hard-line Home Secretary? Amber Rudd is a hard politician to define. Profile by Ian Trevett
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y the end of the EU referendum campaign, Amber Rudd was probably the Remain campaign’s leading light. As passionate as Cameron and Osborne were, strategists (rightly as it turned out) realised that too much emphasis on the PM and Chancellor would simply trigger protest votes against the Government. The Liberals were largely ignored, Nicola Sturgeon could only rally votes north of the border, and Jeremy Corbyn was… well actually, where was Corbyn? Rudd was the unifying figure. With a record of speaking out on climate change and women’s issues, as well as a business
background, she was regarded as a centrist politician, who could get the message across to diverse audiences. As the bitter fight neared its climax at a big TV debate, the ‘Stronger In’ campaign lined up an all-female tag team to get Boris Johnson. Referring to some of the questionable figures banded out by the Leave campaign (e.g £350m a week for the NHS) she prodded him with the spiky line: “I fear that the only number Boris is interested in is Number 10.” More memorably she hit him with: “Boris is the life and soul of the party, but he is not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening.” Aside from the pantomime of the live debates, it was clear that the close collaboration with Europe was an issue that she firmly believed in. She said: “I firmly believe that we will be stronger, safer and better off as a member of the EU than we would be out on our own. “Our businesses will be better off because they have full access to the free trade single market, bringing jobs, investment and financial security. “Our families will benefit from lower households bills. “Our children will grow up in a safer, more secure world, as we play a leading role in one of the world’s largest organisations from within.
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Helping make the decisions that affect them.” So it is perhaps all the more remarkable that she was appointed Home Secretary after the vote went so badly wrong for her. She is undoubtedly the most powerful Remainer in the cabinet. I’d exclude May from this category as she clearly was less bothered about Remain or Leave than where her next job might be!
“Probably Theresa wanted a safe pair of hands, you can’t get much safer than Amber Rudd.”
For those holding out a hope that the abrupt hard Brexit may be tempered by the Remainers in the camp, Rudd’s first announcements proved to be quite a shock. Many might have wondered if she had been replaced by a robot being operated from behind the curtains by a smirking Michael Gove. She hit the headlines at the 2016 party conference when she put forward the idea that companies should be forced to disclose how many foreign workers they employ. What followed next was what can only be described as a baptism of fire. As well as the predictable howls from opposition parties, business leaders lined up to criticise the proposal. Adam Marshall, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said that having a global workforce should not be seen as a “badge of shame”. He added: “Most companies do their utmost to train their workers, engage with local schools and colleges, and look for local hires before going to the overseas market – which is often an expensive and bureaucratic step. Businesses shouldn’t be penalised or questioned for recruiting from overseas when they have specific skills requirements.” Mike Cherry, the national chairman of the FSB, said: “We do not want to see small business owners turned into immigration officers nor encumbered by new bureaucracy.”