EUROPHILE WHO DREAMED UP THE ‘CRETINOUS’ PLAN
WHEN Theresa May chairs the Cabinet Brexit committee today, the most powerful unelected man in Britain will be by her side. Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary who has served the past four Prime Ministers, is privately appalled by Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Next to him in the Cabinet room will be Olly Robbins, another civil servant, who is the PM’s personal adviser on Europe. He shares Heywood’s disdain for Brexit. The two men work closely together. As the top Civil Service negotiator on Brexit, Robbins spends up to three days a week at the European Commission’s HQ in Brussels. He is behind the plan for a fiendishly complex ‘customs partnership’ which could trigger Cabinet resignations.
‘The longer we stay in the EU, the more Robbins and Heywood will like it,’ said one senior Government source last night.
Oxford- educated Robbins is viewed with suspicion by many Brexiteers. It’s hardly surprising. The 43-year-old has been a long- standing champion of deeper political and monetary integration in the EU.
At Oxford in the Nineties he joined an academic group set up to counter Euroscepticism. A worryingly pro-EU pedigree for a man in charge of the day-today negotiations on Brexit.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that many Tories suspect Robbins is deliberately attempting to delay, or even derail, Brexit.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has called the Robbins plan ‘cretinous’. David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, in private calls it a ‘bureaucratic nightmare’.
What is certain is that this is a political nightmare for Mrs May.
At the weekend, it was reported that Davis would resign rather than adopt the partnership plan.
Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, dropped the clearest hint yesterday that he would quit rather than accept a customs partnership.
Asked on Radio 4 whether he would leave the Government if today sees major compromises, he replied: ‘ We don’t answer questions with such suppositions. Getting no answer you can draw your own inferences.’
A resignation by Fox would be politically devastating and a personal blow to Mrs May. She regards him as one of the few genuine friends she has around the Cabinet table.
Meanwhile, the relationship between Davis and Robbins is strained. On more than one occasion, the minister has had to remind Robbins who is in charge of policy.
Last September their relationship crumbled to the point where Robbins was moved from their office in No 9 Downing Street into No 10 to answer directly to the PM. In reality, he had already been doing so. Indeed, Davis’s team claim that Robbins was going behind his superior’s back to talk directly to the PM, who was his boss when she was Home Secretary and he was a senior figure at the Home Office.
Davis and Robbins now meet only once a week and talk on the phone at weekends.
As the Brexit process has unfolded, Robbins has assumed more power and influence.
He is regarded as the go-to figure in London for the EU’s negotiating team. He has struck a close professional relationship with Sabine Weyand, the deputy to chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier. The German regards Robbins as the UK’s chief negotiator and rarely talks to Davis.
The increasing self-importance of Robbins, who relishes the way Mrs May relies on him, has led to comparisons with the turbulent days in 1989 when Mrs Thatcher heeded the views of her economic adviser Sir Alan Walters rather than those of her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, who resigned in protest.
‘ Look what happened to Thatcher,’ said one senior Brexiteer. ‘She cut Lawson out, listened to Walters, and Lawson quit. It was the beginning of the end for her. We don’t want history to repeat itself’.
Meanwhile, the pro- Brexit business group Leave Means Leave has called for Robbins to be sacked and replaced by someone ‘who will take a tough line with Brussels’.
Robbins has complained to Heywood about hostile briefings against him. This led to Julian Smith, the Government Chief Whip, tweeting that the Civil Service is helping to deliver Brexit. Smith added: ‘ The quality of support/ advice is world class. Attacking individual civil servants is deeply unfair.’
Another player in this messy saga is Gavin Barwell, Mrs May’s chief of staff. He retweeted Smith’s comment in agreement, and this was followed by Heywood who thanked the senior figures for their support.
There is something very unedifying about senior Government figures resorting to Twitter to boast about their public duties.
Gus O’Donnell, the former Cabinet Secretary, joined the fray, saying: ‘ Civil servants advise, ministers decide. Anonymous attacks on civil servants are a pathetic way of not facing up to policy differences: we need a clear Cabinet position.’
It’s unheard of for serving or former Cabinet Secretaries to go public in defence of another civil servant with the apparent backing of No 10.
Prominent Brexiteers suspect a plot. One said: ‘Heywood and Robbins have been taking advantage of a Prime Minister who lost her majority in Parliament. They’re trying to forge a classic Civil Service Brexit — one that keeps the UK closely aligned to the EU — something the public did not vote for.’
It is feared that if Robbins and his nexus of unelected Whitehall heavyweights get their way on customs arrangements, they will next turn to trying to keep Britain in the single market.
Robbins may eschew publicity but unusually for a civil servant he is on the books of an after-dinner speaking agency, Champions.
Billed as ‘The Real Mr Brexit’, his listing is on the same page as Lord (Chris) Patten, the ex-EU commissioner leading attempts to scupper Brexit in the Lords. Clearly, while happy to sell his expertise for the right price, he’s also happy to sell 17.4 million Leave voters down the river.
Leading Brexiteers suspect a plot