Fury at Nazi slur on Brexiteers
Three former Civil Service chiefs line up to heap insults on Leave supporters who ‘sell snake oil’
THREE former heads of the Civil Service sparked fury last night after they compared ‘rabid’ Brexiteers to snake oil salesmen and Nazis.
Lord Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet Secretary under Tony Blair and David Cameron, said accusations that Whitehall was trying to sabotage Brexit were ‘completely crazy’.
He said of Brexiteers: ‘Of course, if you are selling snake oil, you don’t like the idea of experts testing your products.’
His predecessor, Lord Turnbull, accused Leave supporters of using tactics similar to those adopted by Nazis in the 1930s.
He compared their claims to the myth of the ‘stab-in-the-back’ perpetuated by the German Right following their country’s defeat in the First World War.
And a third former Civil Service head, Lord Butler, accused ‘rabid Brexiteers’ of seeking to ‘intimidate’ the Civil Service.
Leading Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith said last night: ‘ They call us swivel-eyed mad and now they call us fascists. Where they cannot argue any more they always resort to abuse, and that is what this is all about. They have lost the argument and so call critics mad, bad or dangerous to know.
‘It is typical of the Establishment view of life, which is that we must not question our civil servants and assume everything they say is correct.’
One Cabinet source said it was the Treasury’s Project Fear quotes that had turned out wrong, adding: ‘Where was the emergency budget? Where was the immediate economic shock? So who is it who’s selling snake oil?’
The row erupted last week after Brexit minister Steve Baker said Treasury forecasts were ‘ always wrong’ and that officials were deliberately trying to influence policy in
‘They are losing the argument’
favour of staying in the EU’s customs union. At the weekend, leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg accused officials of ‘fiddling the figures’.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd stepped in yesterday to tell Mr Baker and Mr Rees-Mogg they were ‘wrong’, and that British civil servants are respected around the world.
Issuing a staunch defence of his former colleagues, Lord O’Donnell said honesty and objectivity ran through the core of civil servants ‘like a stick of rock’, and the Brexit forecasts would have been made in good faith.
Responding to claims that Whitehall officials distorted their analysis, he told ITV’s Peston On Sunday: ‘I think that’s completely crazy. The truth is, civil servants operate by the civil service code. Their job is to look at the evidence and present it as best they can, analyse the uncertainties... but that’s what they do, they’re objective and impartial.’
Lord Turnbull told The Observer that the attacks on Whitehall were reminiscent of the ‘stab-in-the-back’ myth, which emerged in Germany after the First World War and was later taken up by the Nazis. He said: ‘After the First World War there was an armistice, but the German army was then treated as the losers. Then, at the start of the Nazi era, the “stab-inthe-back” theme developed.
‘It argued that “our great army was never defeated, but it was stabbed in the back by the civilians, liberals, communists, socialists and Jews”. This is what... these critics are trying to do. They are losing the argument in the sense that they are unable to make their
extravagant promises stack up, and so they turn and say: “Things would be OK if the Civil Service weren’t obstructing us”. When you don’t succeed, you find someone to blame for your failure.’
In 2004, then known as Sir Andrew Turnbull, Lord Turnbull was embroiled in a political row after writing to former Labour Cabinet minister Clare Short, formally criticising her for claims she made about the behaviour of the British security services in the run-up to the Iraq war.
His intervention was described as ‘unprecedented’ and led to allegations that the Civil Service was being politicised.
Senior Tory MP Bernard Jenkin said yesterday that former senior mandarins ‘now freely excoriate Brexit and Brexiteers’ on social media. He said their behaviour ‘suggests they are part of a conspiracy with their ex-colleagues still serving’.
Theresa May will meet the EU’s chief negotiator in Downing Street today as Brexit talks resume. The Prime Minister will see Michel Barnier when he attends a working lunch with David Davis at No 10 ahead of the next phase of negotiations.
IT’S not only frothing Corbynistas who’ve been likening Conservative politicians to Nazis. To his shame, ex-head of the civil service Lord Turnbull used the same comparison to smear Tory Brexiteers.
And he was not alone in this outrageous slur. Two other former top mandarins – Lords Butler and O’Donnell – attacked Brexit-supporting MPs as ‘rabid’ and ‘like snake-oil salesmen’. So much for Whitehall’s political impartiality.
Lord Turnbull has been accused of meddling in politics before. He once rebuked ex-cabinet minister Clare Short for claims she made about the conduct of British intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.
The mandarins are furious, of course, that Remainer Treasury officials are accused of conspiring to keep Britain in the customs union by concocting unduly negative reports about the economic impact of leaving.
But with their hyperbolic language, aren’t these ageing Sir Humphreys protesting a little too much? Anyone might think they were part of the same conspiracy.