A Home Office staff member has indirectly compared backing Priti Patel’s Rwanda immigration scheme to serving under Adolf Hitler.
The scheme, which will see immigrants who arrive in the UK to be processed in the African county, has been slammed by many.
Home Office staff have been conveying their disappointment in the plan on an internal online noticeboard.
An anonymous civil servant made reference to Nazi Germany, citing the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War 2.
Home Secretary Priti Patel
Aaron Chown
The new scheme will see migrants sent to Rwanda for processing
Gareth Fuller
They said: “The words ‘I was only obeying orders’ are echoing down through history to me and making me queasy."
While another said: “Do we have a responsibility to not just leave, but to organise and resist? We cannot simply wash our hands and walk away."
A third person asked: “I find the Government proposal totally unethical and it impacts directly upon my workstream. As a civil servant can I refuse this type of work in contravention of my own ethics?”
The complaints continued as a fourth person added: “Can the permanent secretary and seniors give staff any advice on coping with our conscience with these sorts of policies?
“I don’t feel safe telling people I work for the Home Office any more and now just make up a nondescript role in another government department when asked what I do for a job.”
Not everyone agreed, as a colleague accused staff of making "absurd comparisons".
The comments, as reported in The Guardian, come just days after Ms Patel was forced to defend the scheme when it was slammed by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
He deemed the plans ungodly, while his counterpart in York, Stephen Cottrell, also used his Easter sermon to deride the idea as “so depressing and distressing”.
He said there are “serious ethical questions about sending asylum seekers overseas”.
Archbishop Welby added: “The details are for politics. The principle must stand the judgment of God, and it cannot.
“It cannot carry the weight of resurrection justice, of life conquering death. It cannot carry the weight of the resurrection that was first to the least valued, for it privileges the rich and strong.”
Writing a joint article in The Times with Rwandan foreign minister Vincent Biruta, the Ms Patel reiterated that her controversial plans were “bold and innovative”.
The statement continued: “We are taking bold and innovative steps and it’s surprising that those institutions that criticise the plans fail to offer their own solutions.”
