May in split with Boris as she kicks out rebel EU envoy
A TOP diplomat who quit as Britain’s ambassador to the EU has been dramatically sacked from the Civil Service after a row between Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
Sir Ivan Rogers was forced out yesterday as the Prime Minister felt his position was untenable after he attacked her ‘muddled thinking’ over Brexit.
The Mail on Sunday understands Mr Johnson did not support her decision but gave way because Downing Street was adamant Sir Ivan could not remain in the Civil Service following his outburst last week.
It came amid reports Sir Ivan had hoped to salvage his career by becoming an ambassador elsewhere or taking over a Whitehall department.
A source said last night: ‘The impetus for the move came
‘She was determined Rogers should go’
from No10. Boris would have been happy for Rogers to stay but No 10 was determined he must go and Boris deferred to the PM.’
The row is bound to spark new claims that Mrs May’s joint chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, were involved in forcing out Sir Ivan. The pair have provoked fury from some Ministers who claim they have too much power over Mrs May.
However, a Whitehall ally of the ‘terrible twins,’ as one MP called them, said: ‘Unlike some civil servants, Fiona and Nick don’t duck tough decisions.’
Sir Ivan had stunned No 10 when he resigned his highprofile post in Brussels with a stinging rebuke of the Gov- ernment’s handling of Brexit. In an email to his staff, he urged them to challenge politicians’ ‘ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking’ and ‘deliver messages that are disagreeable to those who need to hear them’.
He warned the UK would be outmanoeuvred by the EU in Brexit talks because ‘multilateral negotiating experience is in short supply in Whitehall, and that is not the case in the commission or in the council’.
Sir Ivan admitted his departure would add to officials’ ‘uncertainty’ and that no one knew what ‘the Government will set as negotiating objectives for the UK’s relationship with the EU after exit’.
Appointed by David Cameron in 2013, he had been due to step down in October this year but said he was leaving early so a new ‘top team’ could be in place to handle the triggering of Article 50 this year and the negotiations over Britain’s departure from the EU that will follow.
But Sir Ivan had already angered Brexiteers by claiming last month that it could take up to a decade to agree a new trade deal with the EU.
A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: ‘Sir Ivan Rogers resigned as UK Permanent Representative to Brussels on January 3. He did not seek any further Civil Service appointment and has therefore resigned from the Civil Service with immediate effect.
‘We are grateful for Sir Ivan’s work in Brussels and across a number of other senior positions in the Civil Service.’ He will receive three months’ pay in lieu of notice but no pay-off.
Leading Remainer Tory MP Anna Soubry said a Government Minister should have defended the impartiality and professionalism of civil servants during the row over Sir Ivan’s departure. And she warned that the Prime Minister must not ‘shoot the messenger’ by falling out with officials who have to give her bad news.
She said: ‘There is a paucity of advice to Theresa May. Prime Ministers who rely on a tiny clique of people will fail.’
The warning came as proBrexit Tory MP John Redwood accused pro-Brussels Whitehall mandarins of betraying Ministers in talks with EU leaders.
He said that as a Trade Minister involved in EU negotiations in the 1990s, he found the rug pulled from under his feet when civil servants gave away his negotiating position.
‘There were times when I was given minimum objectives to secure… only to find someone unknown had passed our bottom line to the European Commission or other EU members,’ Mr Redwood said.
‘I was betrayed by civil servants’