Today brought closure of a kind to last year’s border fiasco (which I covered for Coffee House here and here), with the publication of the report by the Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, John Vine.
On first reading, there is no ‘smoking gun’ which would trigger a ministerial resignation. The report does find that, in early 2011, the immigration minister Damian Green had authorised the relaxation of one of the checks at the centre of the controversy: ‘Secure ID’, which verifies the fingerprints of foreign travellers with visas. But the report also finds that Green’s authorisation should have been superseded by later instructions from the Home Secretary Theresa May. To the extent that this check continued to be relaxed during the summer, the responsibility does lie with officials not ministers.
Nevertheless, May has responded by announcing that UKBA will be split
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