May: I’m in charge of Brexit now
PM reneges on pledge to put Brexiteer in lead role as her top adviser is accused of coup
THERESA May’s chief Europe adviser was accused of orchestrating a Brexit coup last night as it emerged he and the Prime Minister will take full control of negotiations with Brussels.
It was announced yesterday that Olly Robbins’s Europe Unit in the Cabinet Office would take responsibility for the ‘preparation and conduct’ of the exit talks.
At the same time, Mrs May said she would take ‘personal control’ of the negotiations. By contrast, new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab will be left with a ‘deputising’ role in the process. And his ministry – the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) – will be tasked with preparing Britain for whatever deal is eventually agreed. Dozens of DExEU staff will join Mr Robbins’s Cabinet Office unit.
The latest moves come just two weeks after Mr Raab’s predecessor, David Davis, quit DExEU in protest at Mrs May’s controversial Brexit White Paper. And they sparked claims that Mrs May had reneged on her pledge – made when she stood to be Tory leader – that the exit talks would be led by a Brexiteer.
In 2016, Mrs May said: ‘I will create a new government department responsible for conducting Britain’s negotiation with the EU and for supporting the rest of Whitehall in its European work. That department will be led by a senior Secretary of State – and I will make sure that the position is taken by a Member of Parliament who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU.’
Yesterday’s changes were announced just before Mr Robbins gave evidence at the Brexit select committee.
At the hearing, he was accused by MPs of having snatched control of the entire Brexit process and of orchestrating a coup against Mr Davis and his former department.
Tory MP Craig Mackinlay said: ‘I feel that over the last few months I have been misled because quietly, somewhere, there was a coup d’etat going on between either the proper DExEU department or the Europe department at the Cabinet Office.’
Mr Mackinlay said Mr Davis had set out the progress he was making on a White Paper which would have had ‘approval by the public at large’ but ‘ somehow, quietly, that was ripped up’. Instead, the Cabinet agreed the Chequers plan which Brexiteers fear gives too much away.
Mr Robbins denied the claim, saying: ‘I honestly don’t recognise the picture you are painting.’ He did admit that he had started work on the Chequers White Paper ‘ a fortnight or so’ before it was agreed to.
Mr Raab told MPs it was conceivable that the Prime Minister could make even more Brexit concessions to Brussels. The Brexit Secretary said he would continue to have ‘extended conversations, negotiations’ with EU negotiator Michel Barnier over the next three months.
He said the Government’s negotiating position was a ‘ serious substantive offer’ – not the final one.
In a written statement, Mrs May said she was taking personal control of EU withdrawal negotiations. She added: ‘DExEU will continue to lead on all of the Government’s preparations for Brexit: domestic preparations in both a deal and a no- deal scenario, all of the necessary legislation, and preparations for the negotiations to implement the detail of the Future Framework.
‘I will lead the negotiations with the European Union, with the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union deputising on my behalf. Both of us will be supported by the Cabinet Office Europe Unit.’
Labour’s Brexit spokesman Jenny Chapman said: ‘Dominic Raab has been sidelined by the Prime Minister before he has even had the chance to get his feet under the table.’
It came as Chancellor Phillip Hammond promised to guarantee funding for any UK projects which receive EU grants up to the end of 2020 in the case of a no-deal Brexit.
He this meant businesses, universities and local organisations can continue to apply for EU funds confident in the knowledge that they will receive the money.
‘I feel I have been misled’
What Mrs May said in 2016
‘I will create a new department responsible for conducting negotiation with the EU. It will be led by a senior Secretary of State... who campaigned for us to leave’