Cabinet ministers attending special Brexit meetings with Theresa May are being shown no records of their discussions, the Evening Standard has learned.
Such is the secrecy surrounding the Prime Minister’s negotiations, summaries are not circulated in Whitehall, not even to Cabinet members taking part.
Constitutional experts said it was highly unusual for minutes of a key meeting not to be sent to participants to see an agreed record.
According to a government insider, the lack of minutes is among several curious features of the ministerial gatherings.
“There are no minutes, the number of ministers invited varies, and sometimes there are people in the room that are not introduced,” said the individual.
The top-level meetings have been hugely significant. At one such meeting, the Prime Minister was forced to retreat from a Northern Ireland backstop proposal, forcing Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab to dash to Brussels to alter the UK position.
A Downing Street official denied it was unusual, saying: “Minutes would be taken for a formal meeting, that is, Cabinet or a sub-committee. For other meetings, civil servants take a note which is kept for the records. This is standard government practice.”
Broadcaster and journalist Michael Cockerell, an expert on how No 10 has worked under different premiers, said: “It’s interesting because what Mrs May is doing has something of the feel of the way Tony Blair and his closest advisers, Jonathan Powell and Peter Mandelson, operated.
“They would reach big decisions in secret sitting on the sofas in Blair’s study, with no minutes being taken nor a proper record being kept.”
