Arise Sir Eurocrat
Reward for the official at heart of Cameron’s ill-fated EU talks
THE Eurocrat who presided over the shambolic Brussels effort to keep Britain in the EU is to be rewarded with a knighthood.
JONATHAN FAULL, 62, is rewarded in the Queen’s Birthday Honours ‘for services to UK relations with the EU’ – despite acting for Jean-Claude Juncker in talks with David Cameron ahead of the Brexit referendum.
Described in Brussels as the ‘ultimate Eurocrat’, he worked for the European Commission for 38 years before retiring on a £136,000-a-year pension earlier this year.
As the most senior British official working in the Commission, he oversaw Mr Cameron’s much derided renegotiation deal, which led to Britain rejecting its EU membership.
Last night-ormer Ukip leader Nigel Farage ridiculed the decision to reward ‘Sir Eurocrat’.
He said: ‘I don’t know if we should laugh or cry. It’s farcical that a man who has worked for the European Commission against the interests of the UK can receive an honour.’
The official release announcing Mr Faull’s knighthood praised him as ‘one
‘Don’t know if we should laugh or cry’
of the most outstanding Britons of his generation’ working on EU matters. It also said: ‘ Jonathan Faull is recommended for his long and distinguished career in the European Commission which saw him rise to its highest levels in four different Director General roles.
‘He was, until his retirement in January 2017, the most senior British Commission official and was hugely influential in a number of areas.’
Mr Faull, who speaks six languages, joined the Commission in 1978 as a junior civil servant after studying law at the University of Sussex and the College of Europe in Bruges.
In September 2015, he was appointed director general of a task force set up to deal with issues around Mr Cameron’s renegotiation of Britain’s membership of the EU.
He acted as a link between Brussels bureaucrats and civil servants in Whitehall.
In the months after Britain voted to leave the EU, he called on the Commission to take legal action to make it easier for British-born Euro- crats to get Belgian citizenship. Since retiring, he has become a regular Twitter user and has posted links to articles critical of Britain leaving the EU, including one warning the ‘hidden costs of Brexit continue to mount’.
On the other side of the political spectrum, Eurosceptic business leaders have also been handed awards in the honours list.
In contrast to Mr Faull, the three top corporate figures being recognised have all voiced trenchant opposition to the EU.
JOHN TIMPSON, head of keycutting chain Timpson; star investor HELENA MORRISSEY; and Iceland chief executive MALCOLM WALKER have each raised concerns about Brussels in the past.
Mr Timpson was knighted for hiring ex-convicts and for fostering 90 children with late wife Alex.
The 74-year-old has been an outspoken supporter of Brexit, claiming that it was ‘a risk worth taking’ as it would give Britain more control of its own laws.
Mrs Morrissey, 51, of investment giant Legal & General, was made a dame for her efforts to get more women onto City boards.
She argued before the Brexit vote that ‘ British people could thrive outside the EU’.
Mr Walker – who was knighted for services to retail – was not in favour of leaving the EU. But back in 2015, the 71-year- old said that ‘ some changes’ were needed, adding: ‘We need power back to Westminster.’
And designer SIR TERENCE CONRAN, 85, who put his name to a paper arguing that ‘design can help the UK thrive after Brexit’, has been made a Companion of Honour for his world-renowned work.
A Ukraine-born billionaire and Tory party donor will be handed a knighthood after he donated millions to museums and universities.
LEONARD BLAVATNIK, who grew up in Russia and is Britain’s second richest man with a £ 16billion fortune, gave a record £75million to Oxford University.