Whitehall and a ‘plot’ to undermine Brexit

IT’S impossible to exaggerate the importance of independent and impartial civil servants to the workings of good government. They have a crucial role in carrying out the policies devised by ministers and advising on how they should be rolled out.

But if they start trying to make or manipulate policy rather than simply implementing it, the whole democratic process is threatened. On Brexit, they seem to have come dangerously close to crossing the line of political neutrality. Indeed many would say they’ve already crossed it.

In Parliament yesterday it was alleged that Treasury officials are conspiring to keep Britain in the EU customs union, by manufacturing bleak forecasts to suggest that ‘all other options would be bad’.

If true, they are deliberately flouting both Government policy and the will of the 17.4million people who voted to leave the EU. Staying in the customs union would undermine our ability to strike new trade deals with the rest of the world – one of the main reasons for leaving.

Of course, civil servants furiously deny the claim. But it’s one of the worst-kept secrets in Britain that Treasury officials, and indeed most civil servants, are passionately opposed to Brexit. But then – as bureaucrats who love brass-plating Brussels diktats – they would be, wouldn’t they?

The truth is that the Treasury is firmly in the Remain camp and has done all it can to spread gloom over Brexit. It colluded with George Osborne in Project Fear – producing wild and unfounded predictions that a Brexit vote would bring recession and soaring unemployment.

And just this week leaked Treasury forecasts suggested leaving the single market and customs union would stunt Britain’s economic growth. This from a ministry that can’t even get its three-month forecasts right and at virtually every Budget, has to revise the previous year’s figures.

Will this undermining of Britain by our ruling class ever stop? There are massive potential trade benefits of Brexit but they’re being obscured by this constant negativity. Only this week we have signed contracts with China worth £9billion, with the prospect of even more in the pipeline.

It’s time Whitehall officials remembered they are impartial servants of the British people. As such they should be helping the Prime Minister secure the best deal for our country.

We’re leaving the EU next year and, as Theresa May has said, that means leaving the customs union and single market.

If civil servants want to change that, they should stand for election.