Britain’s EU ambassador makes veiled attack on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy in shock resignation letter as calls intensify to replace him with Brexiteer
Diplomat resigned with email to his staff saying civil servants still do not know Government's Brexit priorities
BRITAIN’S outgoing EU ambassador has hit out at the "ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking" of politicians in his shock resignation letter.
Sir Ivan Rogers' unexpected decision to quit his high profile role yesterday has led to calls to replace him with a Brexiteer to lead negotiations in Brussels.
The diplomat resigned with a lengthy farewell email to his staff, in which he said civil servants still do not know the Government's Brexit priorities and "serious multilateral negotiating experience is in short supply in Whitehall".
But last night a government aide told The Sun that Sir Ivan’s “face did not really fit” following Britain’s historic referendum result.
The aide described Sir Ivan’s renegotiations with the EU on behalf of David Cameron as “calamitous”, claiming they “arguably cost him the referendum and the premiership.”
However Sir Simon Fraser, the former head of the Diplomatic Service who worked with Sir Ivan Rogers for "many years", warned that Britain was losing one of its biggest experts on Europe.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I do think that his sort of in-depth knowledge and expertise is a loss as we go into what is going to be, as (Brexit Secretary) David Davis himself has said, a very complex set of negotiations."
But speaking on the same programme, Iain Duncan Smith said the ambassador was untrustworthy.
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The Conservative former work and pensions secretary said: “It gets to a point when a civil servant starts to go public on stuff that you, as ministers, can no longer trust that individual.
“You must have absolute trust and cooperation and you cannot have this stuff coming out publicly.”
He added: “It may actually prove that ministers may well be right to say that they weren’t prepared perhaps to trust him in quite the way they would have done with others.”
Who will replace Sir Ivan Rogers in Brussels?
Ahead of the appointment, here are some of the runners and riders tipped to take over as UK Permanent Representative to the European Union:
- Lord Hill, former EU Commissioner: Formerly Britain’s most senior official in Brussels, he quit immediately after the Brexit vote last June. A minister under John major, he was a staunch defender of the UK’s financial services industry. Since his resignation he has attacked Theresa may for dithering over Brexit, saying the political debate had become “frozen” since the referendum
- Sir John Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England for Financial Stability: It would be a case of deja vu for Sir John, who was Sir Ivan's predecessor at "UKRep" until his move to the BoE in 2013. Nonetheless some speculate he could return to Brussels where his experience and address book would be welcome.
- Tom Scholar, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury: David Cameron's chief adviser during his re-negotiation of Britain's membership of the EU, Mr Scholar has experience of advising on some of the "biggest challenges facing the country in recent years" - according to former chancellor George Osborne.
- Alex Ellis, former UK ambassador to Brazil: After more than three years in charge of the British mission in Brazil Mr Ellis was appointed director general of the Department for Exiting the European Union in November. He is due to take up the post in January, when he will take on responsibility for the negotiation strategy and for relations with EU member states and institutions.
- Michael Ellam, a managing director at HSBC: The former director of communications for Gordon Brown also worked for David Cameron as a senior civil servant at the Treasury.
In his resignation letter, Sir Ivan criticised politicians and urged his civil servants to continue to challenge ministers and "speak the truth to those in power".
He wrote: "I hope that you will support each other in those difficult moments where you have to deliver messages that are disagreeable to those who need to hear them."
But Mr Duncan Smith dismissed this idea, saying he was “clearly frustrated about what he thinks may be a difference of opinion between his own view about what he thinks is achievable and what ministers think is achievable”.
Sir Ivan is expected to return to Brussels next week from his Dorset holiday home, where he penned his incendiary resignation letter, before stepping down fully.
He was due to leave his post later this year anyway, but his early departure comes amid reports of tension between the senior diplomat and Theresa May and her ministers, with accusations he was too pessimistic on Brexit.
But the decision has left a yawning hole in the team negotiating the UK's exit from the EU in a crucial period.
The Government says it expects Sir Ivan's successor to be appointed in time for the triggering of Article 50, due by the end of March.
'Challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking' - Sir Ivan Rogers' resignation letter in full
Dear All, Happy New Year! I hope that you have all had/are still having, a great break, and that you will come back refreshed and ready for an exciting year ahead.
I am writing to you all on the first day back to tell you that I am today resigning as Permanent Representative.
As most of you will know, I started here in November 2013. My four-year tour is therefore due to end in October - although in practice if we had been doing the Presidency my time here would have been extended by a few months.
As we look ahead to the likely timetable for the next few years, and with the invocation of Article 50 coming up shortly, it is obvious that it will be best if the top team in situ at the time that Article 50 is invoked remains there till the end of the process and can also see through the negotiations for any new deal between the UK and the EU27.
It would obviously make no sense for my role to change hands later this year.
I have therefore decided to step down now, having done everything that I could in the last six months to contribute my experience, expertise and address book to get the new team at political and official level under way. This will permit a new appointee to be in place by the time Article 50 is invoked.
Importantly, it will also enable that person to play a role in the appointment of Shan's replacement as DPR. I know from experience - both my own hugely positive experience of working in partnership with Shan, and from seeing past, less happy, examples - how imperative it is that the PR and DPR operate as a team, if UKREP is to function as well as I believe it has done over the last few years.
I want to put on record how grateful I am to Shan for the great working relationship we have had. She will be hugely missed in UKREP, and by many others here in Brussels, but she will be a tremendous asset to the Welsh Government.
From my soundings before Christmas, I am optimistic that there will be a very good field of candidates for the DPR role. But it is right these two roles now get considered and filled alongside each other, and for my successor to play the leading role in making the DPR appointment. I shall therefore stand aside from the process at this point.
I know that this news will add, temporarily, to the uncertainty that I know, from our many discussions in the autumn, you are all feeling about the role of UKREP in the coming months and years of negotiations over 'Brexit'. I am sorry about that, but I hope that it will help produce earlier and greater clarity on the role that UKREP should play.
My own view remains as it has always been. We do not yet know what the Government will set as negotiating objectives for the UK's relationship with the EU after exit. There is much we will not know until later this year about the political shape of the EU itself, and who the political protagonists in any negotiation with the UK will be.
But in any negotiation which addresses the new relationship, the technical expertise, the detailed knowledge of positions on the other side of the table - and the reasons for them, and the divisions amongst them - and the negotiating experience and savvy that the people in this building bring, make it essential for all parts of UKREP to be centrally involved in the negotiations if the UK is to achieve the best possible outcomes.
Serious multilateral negotiating experience is in short supply in Whitehall, and that is not the case in the Commission or in the Council. The Government will only achieve the best for the country if it harnesses the best experience we have - a large proportion of which is concentrated in UKREP - and negotiates resolutely. Senior ministers, who will decide on our positions, issue by issue, also need from you detailed, unvarnished - even where this is uncomfortable - and nuanced understanding of the views, interests and incentives of the other 27.
The structure of the UK's negotiating team and the allocation of roles and responsibilities to support that team, needs rapid resolution. The working methods which enable the team in London and Brussels to function seamlessly need also to be strengthened.
The great strength of the UK system - at least as it has been perceived by all others in the EU - has always been its unique combination of policy depth, expertise and coherence, message co-ordination and discipline, and the ability to negotiate with skill and determination. UKREP has always been key to all of that. We shall need it more than ever in the years ahead.
As I have argued consistently at every level since June, many opportunities for the UK in the future will derive from the mere fact of having left and being free to take a different path. But others will depend entirely on the precise shape of deals we can negotiate in the years ahead. Contrary to the beliefs of some, free trade does not just happen when it is not thwarted by authorities: increasing market access to other markets and consumer choice in our own, depends on the deals, multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral that we strike, and the terms that we agree. I shall advise my successor to continue to make these points.
Meanwhile, I would urge you all to stick with it, to keep on working at intensifying your links with opposite numbers in DEXEU and line Ministries and to keep on contributing your expertise to the policy-making process as negotiating objectives get drawn up. The famed UKREP combination of immense creativity with realism ground in negotiating experience, is needed more than ever right now.
On a personal level, leaving UKREP will be a tremendous wrench. I have had the great good fortune, and the immense privilege, in my civil service career, to have held some really interesting and challenging roles: to have served four successive UK Prime Ministers very closely; to have been EU, G20 and G8 Sherpa; to have chaired a G8 Presidency and to have taken part in some of the most fraught, and fascinating, EU negotiations of the last 25 years - in areas from tax, to the MFF to the renegotiation.
Of all of these posts, I have enjoyed being the Permanent Representative more than any other I have ever held. That is, overwhelmingly, because of all of you and what you all make UKREP: a supremely professional place, with a fantastic co-operative culture, which brings together talented people whether locally employed or UK-based and uniquely brings together people from the home civil service with those from the Foreign Office. UKREP sets itself demanding standards, but people also take the time to support each other which also helps make it an amazingly fun and stimulating place to work. I am grateful for everything you have all done over the last few years to make this such a fantastic operation.
For my part, I hope that in my day-to-day dealings with you I have demonstrated the values which I have always espoused as a public servant. I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power. I hope that you will support each other in those difficult moments where you have to deliver messages that are disagreeable to those who need to hear them. I hope that you will continue to be interested in the views of others, even where you disagree with them, and in understanding why others act and think in the way that they do. I hope that you will always provide the best advice and counsel you can to the politicians that our people have elected, and be proud of the essential role we play in the service of a great democracy.