The passionate Europhile who quietly became the power behind the throne
As reality dawned on Conservative MPS that a number of Cabinet ministers had abstained on Wednesday night’s crucial no-deal vote, recriminations quickly began. Was it simply the chaos of a rapidly changed whip? Did the ministers know what they had done? The accusations were quick to fly around but one name that came up repeatedly was Gavin Barwell.
The Chief of Staff in No 10, Mr Barwell will be unfamiliar to all but the most avid followers of British politics. At first glance, his early years read like those of any other high-flying Conservative staffer: born in rural southern England, independent school, followed by Trinity College, Cambridge, then president of the Cambridge Union and straight into Conservative Central Office.
The only unusual step in this would appear to be the 12 years he spent as a councillor in Croydon. Not many bright young things cut their teeth in local government anymore. But Mr Barwell left the council in 2010, and at 47 his time as an MP has already been and gone. He was the candidate for the Tory marginal seat of Croydon Central in 2010 (majority 75) and managed to win convincingly before clinging on in 2015 with a slim 165 majority. Still, he tempted fate the following year and published a book, How to Win in a Marginal Seat.
That marginal seat wasn’t the only thing that distinguished Mr Barwell from the silver-spoon brigade in the party. While born in Sussex, he grew up in Shirley in Croydon, survived childhood cancer and was the first of his family to attend university, where he studied natural sciences.
In Parliament he was popular and successful. A member of the moderate, modernising wing of the party, he was loyal above all else and was well-known and liked among MPS. As a whip, he reportedly held meetings with every new MP from the 2015 intake, to acquaint them with their jobs.
Under Theresa May he began to climb the ministerial ladder, first as minister for London and then as minister for housing – the last holder of the role before the Grenfell disaster. But that progress was called to an abrupt end by Mrs May’s snap election. His microscopic majority evaporated and Mr Barwell was turfed out.
Yet every cloud has a silver lining. With the Prime Minister forced to sack Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, her co-chiefs of staff, in the wake of that election amid accusations of aloofness and a bunker mentality, the affable and popular Mr Barwell seemed the obvious choice – particularly for a premier who had just cost Mr Barwell and 12 other Tory MPS their jobs.
He successfully steadied the ship, being quick to contact MPS, hold meetings with senior and junior ministers and their special advisers.
A year and a half spent in the least popular administration for decades, however, took a toll on his popularity. Mr Barwell has never hidden his Europhilia, tweeting the morning after the Brexit referendum: “Proud that my home town and the great city of which it is part rejected the politics of hate and division yesterday.”
At the time of his appointment his backing for Remain didn’t seem to matter much. Iain Duncan Smith, the veteran Brexiteer, told Politico in 2017: “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the party leadership had been for Leave, he probably would have been able to justify that… the prime minister [at the time] wanted to remain and so Gavin got behind it.”
Since then, Mr Barwell’s reputation has taken a battering. Downing Street has denounced claims of his involvement in persuading ministers to abstain as “absolute nonsense”. But it won’t be enough to salvage his reputation among Brexiteers.