Theresa May is expected to conduct another cabinet reshuffle after the resignation of Amber Rudd, the home secretary.
Ms Rudd became the fifth departure from the cabinet since last year’s snap general election after admitting she had “inadvertently” misled MPs over the existence of targets for removing illegal immigrants.
The MP for Hastings and Rye stepped down on Sunday evening, a day before she was due to make a statement in the House of Commons on the targets and illegal migration, as she faced increasing pressure over the handling of the Windrush scandal.
In her resignation letter, Ms Rudd took “full responsibility” for not being aware of the existence of targets.
Ms May said she was “very sorry” to see her successor as home secretary leave the post, while Ms Rudd’s opposite number, Diane Abbott, said she had “done the right thing”.
The pressure had been building on the former banker ever since the emergence of the “appalling” treatment of Caribbean immigrants to the UK between the 1940s and 1970s – the so-called Windrush generation.
Concerns had been raised about the immigration status of the Windrush generation and there had been stories of people being forced to prove their near-continuous presence in the country in order to prove they were here legally.
Ms Rudd referred to the Windrush “scandal” in her two-page resignation letter, admitting people with a right to live in the UK had not always been treated “fairly and and humanely”.
It follows the resignations of former defence secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, Priti Patel as international development secretary, Damian Green as first minister and James Brokenshire, who left his role as Northern Ireland secretary on health grounds.
