A Home Office strike is too blunt a weapon to fight the Rwanda policy

There is no doubt that the Illegal Migration Bill, if passed, will impose a considerable moral burden on at least some of the civil servants who will be tasked with its implementation. Deporting genuine refugees to Rwanda or elsewhere is, as has been widely acknowledged, hardly a welcome solution for anyone concerned, even if it were a practical and effective one – which is doubtful.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is well placed to judge such ethical dilemmas, remarked a few weeks ago that he finds the bill “morally unacceptable”, saying that it “fails to live up to our history, our moral responsibility and our political and international interests”.

So it is entirely understandable that some members of the civil servants’ trade union, the PCS, may feel driven to take industrial action in an effort to block, or at least stymie, the bill’s provisions should it become law – though there is already determined and principled resistance in the House of Lords and the legal system to its most repulsive aspects.

However, strike action across the immigration service, or perhaps the Home Office as a whole, feels disproportionate, and too blunt a weapon for the union to use in its effort to achieve the honourable aim of relieving its members of duties that violate their sense of right and wrong.

Indeed, strike action to frustrate a policy that enjoys at least some public support would look far too much like some establishment plot to defy the elected government of the day. If the bill becomes law, it will, however wrong-headed and pernicious, have been sanctioned by parliament.

Given the current controversies that are assailing the civil service and its impartiality, now is not the moment for the PCS to pick a fight with the government about who is in charge of Britain’s borders. It is quite simply a gift to the extreme right, and a clear danger to the survival of the civil service in its proper form.

This is a matter of conscience for individual civil servants, and should be treated as such – a much more practical solution than a strike. If some have a genuine conscientious objection, informal efforts can be made to move them to more congenial work.

For those who are, rightly, concerned about the legality of the government’s policy, under domestic or international law, they should have the reassurance of a direct, written ministerial instruction, which will indemnify them against any possible proceedings.

This may prove essential in any case. After all, the very face of the Illegal Migration Bill carries some highly unusual and disconcerting words: “Secretary Suella Braverman has made the following statement under section 19(1)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998: I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.”

In other, analogous areas of civil service work, moral and legal objections to government policy or ministerial directives can be met with existing, if rarely used, measures. In every department, for example, there has to be an “accounting officer”, usually the permanent secretary, who is obliged to discharge a fiduciary duty over the regularity, propriety, value for money and feasibility of the use of public funds.

If the senior official feels a minister is not complying with the four key tests, then the politician must sign a ministerial directive acknowledging the fact. Ministers may also have to sign “public immunity certificates” if they instruct a civil servant to withhold evidence from a court (on the grounds of national security).

As to breaking the law, obviously forbidden under the civil service code, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 gives civil servants the right to complain to the Civil Service Commission if they feel that they are being required to act in a way that conflicts with the code. The commission can recommend to ministers how the matter should be resolved.

So there are measures well short of industrial action that can be taken to protect those civil servants who wish to avoid inflicting harm on their fellow human beings, or on their own careers and consciences.

Most importantly, the PCS, with or without others, can appeal to the British courts or the European Court of Human Rights for a judicial review of the act, or of any particular actions that flow from it once it receives royal assent. The PCS has said it will wait to see if litigation fails before organising a ballot on action, and with any luck, and a general election in the way, the Rwanda policy may never actually be implemented.

Distinguished lawyers such as Geoffrey Cox KC, the former attorney general for England and Wales, has said it is unlawful under the UK’s treaty obligations, and Rishi Sunak has failed personally to persuade the ECHR otherwise.

The policy is probably doomed, in other words, and the PCS has no business handing Ms Braverman a PR coup in advance.