LONDON — Sajid Javid's appointment as home secretary will buy Theresa May some breathing space — but in reality he's a sign of her weakness.

At first blush, the choice of the first U.K. interior minister from an ethnic minority background seems the perfect response to Amber Rudd's resignation after the former home secretary's botched response to the "Windrush" immigration debacle. In his opening appearance in his new job in the House of Commons Monday, Javid dealt deftly with Labour's attacks, reminding MPs of his parents' background and distancing himself from the controversial "hostile environment" toward illegal immigrants at the heart of the scandal.

The son of a Pakistani bus driver, who grew up in a flat above a shop in Bristol, Javid rose to the board of Deutsche Bank after lucrative stints in New York and Singapore. Former Business Secretary Javid is a symbol of global Britain.

He is also a buccaneering, Brexit-friendly free marketeer — but one who voted Remain (albeit reluctantly) in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. On paper, that might make him the perfect compromise choice as London approaches a crunch period in the fraught negotiations over what happens to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit.

“If [May] had her way, it would’ve been [James] Brokenshire in there. He’s not because she’s too weak" — Anonymous Cabinet minister

However, according to one Cabinet minister who is privately critical of May, had the prime minister been stronger, Javid would “clearly” have been overlooked in favor of a technocratic loyalist.

“If she’d had her way, it would’ve been [James] Brokenshire in there,” said the minister, referring to the former Northern Ireland secretary who is now in charge of housing. “He’s not because she’s too weak.”

The result of the government’s calamitous fortnight of rolling scandal is that May’s "war Cabinet" of senior Brexit advisers just got more pro-Brexit, while the top ranks of government got less Mayite. Parliament, meanwhile, recruits another soft Remainer — Amber Rudd — to the ranks of those who will oppose Britain’s drift toward a hard break with Brussels.

At the heart of it all, frustrated MPs say, is a lack of direction emanating from the top.

The critical Conservative minister who was loyal to May's leadership until the 2017 general election recalled that just a week or two ago, after the Syria bombing and the anti-Semitism crisis in the Labour Party, "people were saying she had steadied the ship.”

“What you realize, though, is that these events are the aberrations — not the other way round. A well-handled crisis rights the ship for a bit, but structurally it’s listing. That’s the reality.”

Another Tory MP agreed: “Mrs May, having had a good three months, looks as if she is almost back on the ropes again.”

The Brexit party?

MPs say the problem with the Home Office — which was run by May for six years until she replaced David Cameron in 2016 — is that it is devoid of purpose, just like her government at large.

Javid, like his predecessor Rudd, cannot rip things up and start again because that would be tantamount to tarnishing the prime minister’s legacy, so the department's wheels keep turning, unable to offer real change.

A new immigration system can’t be introduced until the Brexit deal is finalized but the lack of a parliamentary majority means May's government limps from one issue to the next simply hoping to remain standing on March 30, 2019 — the day after Brexit.

“This all boils down to the same problem: What is our strategy? What are we trying to do? If we can’t answer these questions, the same thing will keep happening," said the Tory minister, speaking on condition of anonymity. "This is a strategic problem which goes to the top.”

Yet, despite it all, May is still more popular than Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, according to an Ipsos MORI poll published by the Evening Standard on Monday. And Brexit has not collapsed into a heap — yet.

If May survives long enough to deliver Brexit, many in her party will think it was a job well done. By appointing Javid, however, she has given the public a glimpse of a fresh-faced future leadership challenger in one of the top jobs.

He is the first serious contender for the Conservative leadership to be promoted by May since the last general election. In the Home Office — and the Brexit "war Cabinet" — he'll have plenty of opportunity to pitch his policies on crime, immigration and the EU to the party base.

“The battle here is for the soul of the Conservative Party,” said a Tory MP. “Is it a broad church, or is it morphing from a party delivering Brexit to the Brexit party?”

Euroskeptic Remainer

A look at Javid’s record suggests he is no lily-livered liberal. On both immigration and Brexit, his colleagues expect him to be to the right of Rudd.

In February 2016, Javid — an arch Euroskeptic — came off the fence to reluctantly reveal his support for Remain. But only through gritted teeth.

In an article headlined “It's a failure. But, with a heavy heart, I believe we must stay in,” Javid explained his distaste for Brussels. The U.K. "should never have joined the European Union,” he wrote, calling it "an overblown bureaucracy."

“If this year’s referendum were a vote on whether to join in the first place, I wouldn’t hesitate to stand up and say Britain would be better off staying out,” he wrote. But, crucially, he went on to say that when balancing out the risks of leaving and remaining, “My heart says we are better off out. My head says it’s too risky right now.”

Rudd is considered too loyal to the government to become a troublesome rebel among the Tory backbenchers.

Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Now the decision has been taken, long-term opportunities must be seized. On Twitter last week, Javid enthusiastically backed the government’s policy of leaving the customs union.

In his article for the Mail on Sunday, Javid said one change he wanted to see delivered was “taking back control of immigration by ending the unrestricted freedom of movement.”

As one colleague put it: “It was an argument for Leave, with a sentence at the end saying why he was for Remain.”

Among Conservative Remainers, there was some concern at his appointment. While Rudd was an independent presence and "a pretty solid Remain voice" in the Cabinet, who was able to influence May on issues such as the transition to Brexit, "Saj" is less bothered by Brexit, said one senior Tory.

That shifts the burden of putting forward the Remainers' point of view onto the shoulders of the likes of Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark, said the senior Tory. As for Rudd, she is considered too loyal to the government to become a troublesome rebel among the Tory backbenchers.