Trans visibility and non-binary awareness: Meet the Ministry of Justice's woke civil servant chief

As a part of the early release scheme, on 10 September the government accidentally released 37 prisoners in error, including one man who sexually assaulted a woman; Five of these convicts were still at large as of the end of September.

The justice system itself, as we have seen with the policing of the recent anti-immigration protests, operates in two tiers. Two Tier Keir is not just a catchy nickname, it means that people perceived by the judicial system as being ‘enemies’, that is right-wing or culturally nationalist, are treated far harshly than those perceived as being ‘friends’, including BLM, pro-Palestine, anti-fascist, eco warriors and so on.

Prisons are in crisis, crime is being normalised across Britain as burglaries and theft have become de facto legal, people are being locked up for offensive social media posts and our justice system is so incompetent it accidentally releases sex offenders onto our streets.

This is not Keir Starmer’s fault, entirely. Britain’s two-tier justice system and broken prisons have been around for many years.

In this series of articles, I am investigating the figures who are responsible for this calamity. I have previously written about Sir Matthew Rycroft, the career diplomat with no experience in policing or migration, who has run the Home Office since 2020. This piece will focus on a woman he has worked very closely with in the past, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Dame Antonia Romeo DCB.

Dame Antonia, 49, unlike Sir Matthew, has had some experience of her department previous to becoming its chief civil servant. Joining the Civil Service in 2000, much of Romeo’s career has been focussed on economic and foreign policy. However, in 2011 she joined the MoJ as a Director General, responsible for overseeing a variety of areas including communications and “group HR” (whatever that is).

During her time at the MoJ, Romeo, according to documents seen by the Mail on Sunday, was the ‘senior responsible officer’ for a disastrous programme which sold off probation services to private companies. The programme wasted half a billion in taxpayer cash which went to bailing out companies that it turned out were not financially viable.. The scheme was scrapped and all probation services were re-nationalised in 2020. Allies of Romeo point out that the scheme was government policy and claim there was no criticism of the team responsible for delivering the programme.

When Dame Antonia was later promoted to the Department for International Trade, then Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said of Dame Antonia: “The chief behind the botched probation scheme is now being asked to organise the biggest series of simultaneous trade negotiations in history. Only this Government could give a promotion for failure.”

She left the MoJ in 2015 for New York City where she became Her Majesty's Consul General. Romeo was known for her party lifestyle, being pictured with celebrities including Joanna Lumley, Anna Wintour, and Harvey Weinstein. She also crossed paths with Matthew Rycroft, who was also working in New York at the time in the UN.

Reports in the Daily Mail reveal that she was heavily criticised for her lavish spending of taxpayer money, including on “last-minute flight booked to London in February 2017 so that Mrs Romeo could attend that year's Bafta awards” and on sending “bouquets of flowers to British celebrities, including Victoria Beckham”. Sources close to Romeo point out that all expenditure was within the rules and say it is untrue to suggest she flew from NY to London primarily to attend the BAFTAs.

Allegations of bullying have also followed her throughout her Civil Service career. Civil Service surveys of colleagues in New York reported high rates of bullying, and other accusations were made during her period in DIT. However, friends of Romeo say self-reported bullying by civil servants fell by 3 per cent during her tenure at the Department for Trade and were in line with civil service averages.

In March 2017 Dame Antonia joined DIT, however, she stayed in New York while her children finished school. Astonishingly, she made taxpayers pay for £31,000 worth of flights (some business class) so that she could commute between NYC and Whitehall for some months. A government source said all flights were within the rules and disclosed in the usual way.

At DIT she was branded the “Queen of Woke” by a senior mandarin who worked closely with her.

To understand her management style, look no further than the safe space rooms set up in her department, or the workshops that were hosted for civil servants in Tai Chi and Japanese calligraphy sessions which were held during work hours.

In July 2020 she sent an email to all DIT staff about non-binary colleagues featuring a cross dresser based in the British Embassy in China, Ashley Green. The message focussed on “non-binary awareness week” and told people to put their pronouns in their emails and to use gender-neutral language.

As permanent secretary she wrote weekly updates to officials which included a suggestion for staff to celebrate Transgender Awareness Week by watching a film called Seahorse, which told "the story of a trans man's path to parenthood". She also urged officials to attend a "transgender awareness session" and boasted about flying the Trans flag above DIT HQ.

Romeo was obsessed with making DIT “the most inclusive place to work in Government,” as she once wrote in a weekly update. This was done in part by working with the radical Trans activist charity Stonewall (which was later banned from government), and by installing Trans-friendly unisex bathrooms in her department.

Another of Romeo’s notes featured Dan Ramsay, then Director of the GREAT campaign, who linked to a Guardian article from the dancer Akram Khan claiming Brexit and debates around immigration “threaten to turn our diversity into division.” One email sent in 2020 to DIT colleagues had the subject line: “Why does Bi Visibility Day matter to me?”

After the BLM protests in 2020, Dame Antonia emailed colleagues, saying: "I want to double down on our work to ensure everything we do internally and externally is supporting the diversity, collaboration and inclusion agenda." This statement was telling; she is an avid DEI supporter with an “agenda”. Her email continued: “We must all offer support and solidarity, speak out against injustice, and use every tool at our disposal to make a difference.” This is the language of a student activist, not a senior Whitehall official.

Since becoming the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice in January 2021 she has maintained her DEI campaign.

Romeo’s tweets since joining the MoJ include references to “diversity in the courtroom” and “Deaf awareness week”.

Much like how Matthew Rycroft is a Civil Service Race, Faith and Belief Champion, the Queen of Woke is a Gender Champion. Much of her efforts have focussed on menopause awareness and equality; she once tweeted: "Gender equality is a shared mission: male allyship is crucial." As Gender Champion Romeo set up the “gender equality leadership group”, in which officials meet regularly to discuss their gender.

In May 2022, MoJ staff received an official message from a civil servant about Lesbian Visibility Week, expressing concern over the absence of "meaningful lesbian visibility" among senior officials, "successful celebrities," and in media portrayals that offer "a happy ending."

That same month, civil servants were sent a memo from Nick Goodwin, the Race Champion on the department’s executive committee, marking the second anniversary of George Floyd's murder. He emphasised that it was "an important moment to reflect."

Though you may believe non-binary awareness, trans and lesbian visibility, deaf awareness, menopause awareness, gender equality and BLM are all worthy causes (though you may not, too), it is surely not the job of the most senior official in the MoJ to spend time on such things.

However, government sources say that workplace culture and welfare are a priority for senior civil servants and dispute claims that work on diversity and inclusion has taken precedence over the agenda at MoJ where leaders have been focussed on pressing issues such as the overcrowding crisis in our jails and the justice system’s response to the recent disorder.

Bizarrely, Liz Truss, who worked with Romeo when she was at DIT, later wanted to promote her to the Treasury when she was prime minister. When I asked her why in an interview earlier this year, she refused to answer.

The Treasury job is not the only one that it is reported Romeo is in line for. With Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, now stepping down, the MoJ mandarin has been touted as being a top contender for the most important position in Whitehall. With Labour’s obsession with identity (see the chancellor’s video about being a woman and David Lammy’s speech to the UN on being a black man), Romeo is the perfect choice for our new Diversity Administration.