Theresa May admits Grenfell Tower survivors mistake
Mrs May - the outgoing conservative MP for Maidenhead - will appear in an ITV documentary on her time as Prime Minister
Last updated 28th May 2024
Former Prime Minister Theresa May has admitted, during a documentary, that she should have met with Grenfell Tower survivors sooner after the fire in 2017.
Speaking on an ITV documentary on her 2016-2019 premiership, Mrs May said: "I should have gone and met victims, I recognise that", referring to the incident which claimed 72 lives.
Her chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, will also appear on Theresa May: The Accidental Prime Minister, which will air on ITV1 at 10:25pm on Monday. He says that her team "got that call badly wrong".
He added: "We served her very badly because it played on the perceptions that people already had from the election campaign, that she wasn't comfortable with that kind of face-to-face contact."
Mrs May also spoke on her time as Home Secretary, taking responsibility for the Home Office's hostile environment policies on immigration, and admitting that sending out vans with "Go home or face arrest" written on them, as part of an advertising campaign targeting illegal immigrants in 2013, was "wrong".
She said: "It was wrong, and we stopped it. We realised after a short period of time that we needed to stop that."
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman told the documentary: "I think history will remember Theresa as a dedicated public servant - who was probably in the wrong job at the wrong time."