The Home Office’s official Twitter account tweeted, then deleted, a message which suggested Suella Braverman was one of Britain’s “greatest injustices”.
Alongside prime minister Rishi Sunak, Braverman has been championing an new crackdown on grooming gangs this week, blaming “political correctness” for the government’s inability to tackle the problem until now.
Braverman vowed on Sky News to bring the “gangs of British Pakistani men who’ve worked in child abuse rings or networks” to “justice”.
However, on Tuesday evening, critics joked that the home secretary’s own department seemed to confuse who was supposed to be facing justice after it tweeted: “It is time to put an end to one of the greatest injustices in modern Britain.
“The Home Secretary. @SuellaBraverman.”
It appeared the tweet was deleted just moments later, with a replacement reading: “The grooming gangs scandal is one of the greatest injustices in modern Britain.
“Home secretary @SuellaBraverman on government measures to put an end to the abuse.”
A short clip just under two minutes of the home secretary condemning the grooming gangs scandal then played.
When approached by HuffPost UK about the deleted tweet, the Home Office declined to comment.
Despite holding one of the great offices of state for less than six months, Braverman has created a storm of headlines about her own role in government.
That includes claiming it was her “dream” to deport migrants to Rwanda, breaching the ministerial code by sharing official documents, and for saying asylum seekers were “invading” UK shores.
Now, her latest crackdown is being condemned for ignoring the Home Office’s own data showing that most group-based child sexual exploitation involved white perpetrators.
So, Twitter was quick to joke about the “real” intentions behind the original tweet, which had been screenshot.