Afternoon summary
- Labour has called for David Davis, the Brexit secretary, to make a Commons statement when MPs return from their Christmas break on Monday about the resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers. (See 3.37pm.)
You can read my earlier lunchtime summary, with a much fuller round-up of the latest developments in the Rogers story, here, at 2.40pm.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Here are two Ivan Rogers-related blogs that are worth reading.
For decades, eurosceptics revered the UK’s unwritten constitution: its sovereign parliament, its independent judiciary, its neutral civil service. But an alternative centre of power - the people - has now been established. Rather than their loyalty to the constitution, institutions are now judged according to their loyalty to the demos (nearly half of whom voted to remain) ...
The elected Commons is no more respected. There is only one parliament that is currently guaranteed a say on the final Brexit deal - and it is not the British one. Brussels’ much-maligned MEPs, unlike MPs, are assured a vote.
Like past revolutionaires, the Brexiteers are seeking to remake national institutions in their own image. But as they contend with the biggest task facing any government since 1945, they may yet regret their dismissal of accumulated wisdom.
But the reality is that Sir Ivan was never going to be the UK’s lead negotiator in the Brexit talks. This role will be reserved for the so-called “sherpas” of heads of state and government. Oliver Robbins, the permanent secretary at the new Department for Exiting the EU, will function as the sherpa for Theresa May.
Had Robbins resigned out of the blue instead, that would have been a completely different proposition – and a much bigger deal.
In other words, while Sir Ivan’s experience and knowledge would certainly have come in handy over the next few months, we should not exaggerate the possible consequences of his resignation for the government’s negotiating strategy – let alone for the UK’s chances of securing a good deal.
The Commons European scrutiny committee wrote to Sir Ivan Rogers last month asking him to give evidence to it in the new year. Nothing was agreed but Sir Bill Cash, the Conservative Eurosceptic who chairs the committee, has written to him again today renewing the invitation. Cash said the committee’s interest in hearing from Rogers was “all the stronger” in the light of his resignation.
Labour calls for Commons statement on Rogers' resignation
Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, has written an open letter to David Davis, the Brexit secretary, urging him to make a Commons statement next Monday about the resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers. Starmer says Rogers’s departure, and his farewell email, raise a number of questions about the government’s strategy.
Here’s an extract from the letter.
Since the UK permanent representation to the EU (UKRep) should be central to the negotiations that will then ensue, it is frankly astonishing that in his resignation letter to his colleagues, Sir Ivan says: “We do not yet know what the government will set as negotiating objectives for the UK’s relationship with the EU after exit”. Time is running out. It is now vital that the government demonstrates not only that it has a plan but also that it has a clear timetable for publication ...
It is – as I know you agree – a crucial part of our system of government that our civil service remains independent of the executive and able to give detailed, objective advice tomMinisters. There are obvious concerns – underlined by Sir Ivan’s insistence that UKRep staff continue to “challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and … never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power” – that this principle is being undermined by the government’s current approach to Brexit negotiations. It is crucial that the government remain open, transparent and accountable throughout this process and I hope you will provide reassurance that this will be the case.
The main person from Ukip commenting on the Ivan Rogers story yesterday was Nigel Farage, the former leader. Today Paul Nuttall, the current leader, has posted his first tweet on the subject.
Sir Ivan Rogers resignation is a good thing for Britain. He had become far to close to the EU Institutions to do his job properly.
— Paul Nuttall (@paulnuttallukip) January 4, 2017
Lunchtime summary
- A Conservative former cabinet minister and leading leave campaigner has been accused of smearing Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s outgoing ambassador to the EU. In successive interviews Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, claimed that Rogers had a role in information embarrassing to ministers being leaked, that he was not trusted, and that he was kept out of the loop. (See 8.42am and 12.28pm.) Dave Penman, head of the FDA, the union representing senior civil servants, hit back, saying Duncan Smith’s allegations would undermine the civil service. And Lord Ricketts, a former head of the Foreign Office, told the World at One that Duncan Smith’s claim amounted to a “smear”. Commenting on the claim that Rogers leaked the story about him telling Number 10 it could take 10 years to negotiate a free trade deal with the EU, Ricketts said:
I think there’s absolutely no evidence for that. I’m afraid that’s a bit of a smear against Ivan Rogers. I think it’s equally likely that it was leaked somewhere from the centre with a political motive of undermining him because he was saying things that people at the centre were not very happy about.
That’s what I mean when I say whoever is put into Brussels, ministers have got to stand behind them and defend them because officials cannot operate in this politicised environment if ministers are not prepared to stand behind them.
The claim that Rogers was actually the victim of that leak, not the perpetrator of it, is also backed up by an account in the Times (paywall) saying this episode ruined his relationship with Number 10. The Times says:
If [Rogers] was cross about the leak, he was apoplectic about the reaction. No 10’s failure to offer him sufficient backing after the leak left him surprised and dismayed. Mrs May’s chief lieutenants, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, were blamed for hanging him out to dry, with all the consequences for his authority across Europe and in Whitehall that would bring.
“No 10 might be furious that he is going but they created this resignation. They briefed against him, someone leaked the memo [about Brexit taking ten years], and they tried to pin the so-called failed negotiation [under Mr Cameron] on Tom Scholar [Mr Cameron’s adviser on the European Union] and Ivan Rogers,” according to one former colleague in Brussels.
“If you are the British ambassador, your job is to say the truth back home and to put the best possible case in Brussels. When you do not have the support of your prime minister you cannot do the job.”
On the World at One Peter Lilley, another Conservative former cabinet minister and prominent leave supporter, partially defended Duncan Smith. Lilley said he did not know who leaked the “10 years” story, but that Rogers clearly did want the email he sent out yesterday to be leaked. Lilley said:
This letter was clearly intended and inevitably going to leak because he sent it to all his staff as an email, and it is written in a tone which is really designed for publication. So we know that at least one of his two leaked emails was made in a way that was designed to become public.
- Former top civil servants have said the government will be making a grave mistake if it insists on Rogers being replaced by a committed Brexiteer. The Telegraph and the Daily Mail have both reported that this is the government’s intention.
Wednesday's Daily Telegraph:
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 3, 2017
“May to pick Brexiteer as our man in Brussels”#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpaperspic.twitter.com/tBDozfMkd3
Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff, said insisting on giving the job to a Brexiteer would be a mistake. (See 10.26am.) And Lord Ricketts, the former head of the Foreign Office, said the same thing on the World at One. He said:
I’m really concerned about this undertone of denigration of Ivan as a person and this feeling that it has got to be one of us next time. That is a complete misunderstanding of what civil servants are for ... This idea that you have got to have someone pro-Brexit out their politicises the civil service in a way that we have never done in this country.
However, a close reading of the Telegraph and Mail stories suggests that government sources are briefing that they want Rogers to be replaced by someone who wants to make a success of Brexit, not necessarily by someone who has been a lifelong supporter of leaving the EU. My colleague Patrick Wintour has written an article about who the possible candidates are.
- Alistair Burt, a former Foreign Office minister, has said there should be a statement in the Commons about Rogers’ resignation when MPs return next week. (See 12.11pm.)
- The European commission has said it regrets the departure of Rogers. At a briefing in Brussels commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said:
We regret the loss of a very professional, very knowledgeable - while not always easy - interlocutor and diplomat who always loyally defended the interests of his government.
Asked if his resignation shortly before the tough Brexit talks begin would cause problems, Bertaud said: “This is not something that we are going to comment on at this stage. Negotiations have not yet started and we are still waiting for the triggering of article 50 to commence those negotiations.”
- Andrea Leadsom, the environment secretary, has said that slashing regulations for farmers will be the government’s key priority for the agriculture sector as Britain leaves the European Union. She also suggested that farmers would still be able to employ seasonal workers from the EU after Brexit. (See 11.39am.)
- Britain’s manufacturers ended 2016 on a strong note, according to a survey that signalled the fastest growth in the sector for more than two years and indicated that the weak pound had boosted exports. Commenting on the figures Mark Reckless, Ukip’s economics spokesman, said:
The manufacturing purchasing managers index hitting a two and a half year high of 56.1 today is just the latest data showing the UK economy growing strongly. Why do the media always preface such news with ‘unexpectedly’ or ‘despite Brexit’? Most people voted leave because they thought we would be better off out of the EU, so their confidence increased when they won the vote.
The problem is that the remainers who write and report on economic commentary do not understand this. The worst aspect of this misapprehension is that it has led the Bank of England, led with a remainer mindset, to stoke what may be an inflationary boom with yet lower interest rates and even more quantitative easing (QE). It’s time they woke up, understood how strong our economy is, and corrected their mistakes. We should stop QE and raise interest rates to limit inflation, rather than artificially stoke an economy that is doing well enough in its own as we leave the EU.
- John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary, has said that Sir Brian Leveson does not to chair the second phase of his public inquiry into the press. There is meant to be a second part of the Leveson inquiry looking into the specific phone-hacking allegations involving the News of the World and other papers that were overlooked during the first inquiry because criminal trials were pending. The government is consulting on whether to go ahead with this. Asked if it should go ahead, Whittingdale told the Today programme:
Apart from anything else, the one thing that’s clear is that Lord Justice Leveson has no wish to undertake another inquiry. So you’ve got to find somebody.
He’s got other jobs to do now, he’s already given up 15 months of his life for one inquiry and I’ve talked to him and I know he doesn’t have any enthusiasm.
Updated
Sir Ivan Rogers could still take part in a meeting with European counterparts next week despite the criticisms expressed in his resignation email, the Press Association reports. The next scheduled meeting of the Coreper II group - made up of the permanent representatives from each member state - is due to take place on January 10, but officials at the UK mission in Brussels said no formal date had been fixed for Rogers’ departure. Final arrangements for the UK presence at the meeting have not been confirmed but a spokeswoman said: “Ivan would, I assume, attend.”
Two Brussels experts have rejected claims that Sir Ivan Rogers did not anticipate the UK voting to leave the EU.
This is from Matthew Holehouse, who used to be the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent and how now covers Brexit for MLex Market Insight.
"He was aghast at the Brexit result." Not really. He always thought Cameron was going to lose to working class protest. https://t.co/I5GCym7T36
— Matthew Holehouse (@mattholehouse) January 4, 2017
And this is from the Times’ Brussels correspondent Bruno Waterfield.
He warned that a #brexit vote was 'perfectly imaginable' from end of 2012 until it happened & never displayed any 'remoaner' tendency at all https://t.co/XhTol2MnV9
— Bruno Waterfield (@BrunoBrussels) January 4, 2017
Guy Verhofstadt, head of the ALDE liberal group in the European parliament and the parliament’s lead Brexit negotiator, has posted this tribute to Sir Ivan Rogers on Twitter. That “knew what he was talking about” seems to be dig at certain members of the UK government.
Best Wishes to Sir Ivan Rogers, a much respected UK civil servant in Brussels - who knew what he was talking about.#Brexit
— Guy Verhofstadt (@GuyVerhofstadt) January 4, 2017
FDA chief criticises May for failing to defend civil servants
The head of the top civil servants’ union has accused ministers including Theresa May of failing to defend the independence of its senior mandarins following the resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers as Britain’s ambassador in Brussels, my colleague Rajeev Syal reports.
Updated
My colleague Anushka Asthana, the Guardian’s joint political editor, is doing a Facebook Live Q&A at 1pm. It’s a new format we are experimenting with. She will be broadcasting through Facebook, but taking and replying to questions posted by readers/viewers on the Facebook page. She will be doing it every Wednesday for the next few weeks after PMQs. There is no PMQs today, but there is still plenty to talk about.
You will be able to watch it here, on the Guardian’s Facebook page.
Duncan Smith says Rogers was excluded from key Brexit decisions because he was not trusted
Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative former work and pensions secretary, gave another interview about Sir Ivan Rogers’ resignation, to Sky News, a few minutes ago. On Today this morning Duncan Smith said that ministers could not trust Rogers because he seemed to have had a hand in two leaks intended to embarrass the government. (See 9.52am.) Duncan Smith could not prove this allegation (and in fact some observers think the Laura Kuenssberg leak was intended to undermine Rogers himself, not Theresa May) but that did not stop him repeating it again on Sky. In fact, this time Duncan Smith went further.
- Duncan Smith said that Rogers was excluded from key Brexit decisions because minister did not trust him and that this was one of the reasons he resigned.
The truth is, I think there’s a little bit of sour grapes going on here because he’s not really included much in the discussion about how they are going to go about this negotiation, partly because, I said earlier on, I think ministers don’t full trust him ...
At the end of the day, a minister and the government is responsible for taking decisions. And they will of course keep quite a lot of this close to their chest. And I have to tell you, judging by the last two leaked emails, I’m not a little surprised that they have kept quite a lot of that close to their chest and that they haven’t told Sir Ivan that much, because if he’s busy leaking emails out - at least, he may not have done it himself, but he certainly knows that if you put emails out to enough people, it’s going to end up in the public domain.
So, whilst I’m sorry that he chooses to resign, I think his resignation process, and the email, tells you quite a lot about the real reason he’s resigning, which is he’s probably been cut out of much of that discussion about where the negotiations will go because they’re going to be done mostly back in Downing Street.
- He said ministers “won’t be overly unhappy to see [Rogers] go”.
- He accused Rogers of being self-important.
[Rogers] confuses the word ‘truth’ with advice. He may have his own opinions and advice. But he’s not God Almighty. He can’t confuse that with the idea that when he opens his mouth, he is speaking truth, and his criticism of government is that they don’t know what they’re doing. Sounds a touch, if you don’t mind me saying so, a little bit like a man who’s got a little bit too close to his own self and thinks that he’s more important than perhaps he really is.
I called the Foreign Office earlier to ask if they agreed with Duncan Smith about Rogers being untrustworthy. I was told someone would ring me back with a line, but I’m still waiting for a call.
Updated
Former minister calls for Commons statement on Rogers' resignation
Alistair Burt, the pro-European former Foreign Office minister, has written an article about Sir Ivan Rogers’ resignation for ConservativeHome. He says a government minister should make a statement on this to the Commons when MPs return next week.
A very senior UK patriot has chosen to leave his post, rather than continue down a path of which he fears for our country. This requires a government statement and explanation next week – and should induce further urgency into our preparations, and the base for our negotiations. MPs will be right to urge that we appoint quickly an ambassador with the ability to understand fully what it is that the government is looking for, and with the capacity to influence and shape such a position, the drive to deliver it, and the contacts and skills to make it a success – but also with the certainty of being listened to, however uncomfortable that may be.
Sir Ivan will have done that individual a favour. The government cannot afford for the next ambassador to the EU to walk.
Leadsom suggests farmers will still be able to hire EU seasonal workers after Brexit
Andrea Leadsom, the environment secertary and one of the leading Conservative Vote Leave campaigners, has been speaking at the Oxford farming conference today. Inevitably much of her speech focused on Brexit. Here are the key points.
- Leadsom hinted that the government would ensure that British farmers could still hire seasonal workers from the EU after Brexit.
I also know how important seasonal labour from the EU is, to the everyday running of your businesses.
I’ve heard this loud and clear around the country, whether in Herefordshire, Sussex, or Northamptonshire, and I want to pay tribute to the many workers from Europe who contribute so much to our farming industry and rural communities.
Access to labour is very much an important part of our current discussions – and we’re committed to working with you to make sure you have the right people with the right skills.
(This may confuse anyone who thought that one of the main goals of the leave campaign was to cut unskilled immigration from the EU.)
- She said that leaving the EU would allow the government to scrap red tape for farmers, including rules saying some farmers have to put up billboards saying they are getting EU grants.
Now, as we prepare to leave the EU, I will be looking at scrapping the rules that hold us back, and focusing instead on what works best for the UK:
No more 6 foot EU billboards littering the landscape.
No more existential debates to determine what counts as a bush, a hedge, or a tree.
And no more, ridiculous, bureaucratic three-crop rule.
By cutting the red tape that comes out of Brussels, we will free our farmers to grow more, sell more and export more great British food – whilst upholding our high standards for plant and animal health and welfare.
- She said leaving the EU would allow the government to design a successor to the common agricultural policy that worked primarily for British farmers, not for the EU as a whole.
- She said that her two main ambitions as environment secretary were to increase farm production and exports and “to become the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it”.
Updated
The European commission has paid a warm tribute to Sir Ivan Rogers, my colleague Jennifer Rankin reports.
European commission on Ivan Rogers: regrets departure of 'v professional, very knowledgeable, not always easy interlocutor and diplomat'.
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) January 4, 2017
Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has embarked on a two-day new year tour of the Gulf in a bid to strengthen economic relations with the UK’s allies in the region ahead of Brexit, the Press Association reports. He is due to visit Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to provide reassurance that the government is committed to forging improved trade links and greater economic cooperation.
Arriving in Kuwait this morning, Hammond said:
As we leave the EU, Britain’s future prosperity requires us to maintain the strongest possible economic links with our European neighbours, while enhancing our existing partnerships with the wider world.
There is huge potential to expand our economic and investment relationships with our Gulf allies in the future and in the last few weeks we’ve seen a number of significant investments into the UK which are a real vote of confidence that together we can seize the opportunities that lie ahead.
Jonathan Powell's Today interview - Summary
And here are the main points from the Today interview with Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff and a former Foreign Office diplomat.
- Powell said it would be wrong to insist on Sir Ivan Rogers’ replacement having to be someone who was pro-Brexit.
We now know that the successor has got to be someone who is pro-Brexit, which is for a start is a break of the rule we had of an independent civil service … It’s a rule we imposed in the 19th century to get away from,the jobbery of the 18th century and the 17th century. We imposed a rule that civil servants were implicitly neutral, they would serve government of any particular colour, and they would do their job to the best of their ability. If we are going to have to have people who have to be on a particular political colour for a job the whole system will collapse. If we have to have every civil servant supporting a Tory government believing a Tory should be in power, the independent system will not work.
- He said the Brexit negotiations would fail if ministers were not prepared to have civil servants like Sir Ivan Rogers telling them about the potential flaws in their plans.
The point is to have someone who will tell you frankly what the problems are, who will point out to you the elephant traps, who will say these are the things that could go wrong. Then you make your decision as a politician, and the civil servant will then implement it. He will not argue back at that stage, he will implement them.
But if you are not prepared to have the argument, if you are not prepared to have someone who will tell you what the problems are, you are going to end up in a disaster. And that’s what’s going to happen with these negotiations if they really go for a patsy. You won’t know what’s going to happen, you will live in a miasma, you being the prime minister, the ministers. If they do not have civil servants telling them honestly what the other Europeans think, not telling them honestly what is possible to negotiate, they’ll live in this fantasy land of what’s possible, they’ll live in a Daily Mail world of what could be achieved. And they will fail.
- He praised Rogers as a classic, independent civil servant.
Ivan worked with me in Number 10 Downing Street, he was principle private secretary when I was there, and he also worked for the Tories, he’d been on both sides. He’d worked for Ken Clarke, he’s worked with Tory and Labour governments. He has been a classic civil servant being independent. He sets out his views in an unvarnished fashion in private but then implements what anyone wants.
Reaction’s Iain Martin thinks Powell’s use of the phrase “both sides” was telling.
Unintentionally revealing from J Powell. Rogers had served "both sides" - Ken Clarke + Tony Blair. Referendum result rather cuts across that
— Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) January 4, 2017
- Powell said it was “very worrying” if someone like Rogers felt he could no longer work for the government.
For him to feel he can no longer set out his views honestly and frankly to ministers, that they aren’t prepared to argue back on this, is really very worrying. If they want to have someone who’s a patsy, who agrees with them then what is the point of having an independent civil service, which is one of the key pillars of our unwritten constitution.
- He said the government’s Brexit negotiation would become a “complete mess” if it did not set out broad objectives in advance.
I’ve spent 40 years of my life negotiating, mainly for the government, and there’s a big difference between what your objectives are in a negotiation and what your strategy and your tactics are. I don’t think anyone is suggesting the government should reveal what its strategy or its tactics are. Of course you keep those to yourself. But if you don’t know what your objectives are when you go into a negotiation, you are bound to end up with a complete mess.
You have to set out those objectives clearly. If Theresa May is going to set out a plan in the next couple of weeks as she suggests, before we start these negotiations, she needs to be clear: Are we staying in the single market or leaving the single market? Are we staying in the customs union or leaving the customs union? And are we or are we not going to have a transitional agreement. Unless she is clear on those three points, it is not a plan. It is simply saying, yet again, Brexit means Brexit, which means nothing.
I’ve taken some of the quotes from PoliticsHome.
Updated
Iain Duncan Smith's Today interview - Summary
Here is a full summary of the points that Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative former work and pensions secretary, said in his interview on the Today programme. He was being interviewed alongside Jonathan Powell, a former Foreign Office diplomat who went on to serve as Tony Blair’s chief of staff. I will post a summary of what Powell said shortly.
- Duncan Smith effectively accused Sir Ivan Rogers of being disloyal, saying ministers could not trust him. (See 8.42am.)
- Duncan Smith said Rogers and other civil servants should not always expect ministers to accept their advice. What Rogers might see as “truth” was actually just an opinion, Duncan Smith said.
[Rogers] was clearly frustrated about what he thinks may be a difference of opinion between his own view about what he thinks is achievable and what ministers think is achievable…
Jonathan suggests somehow that you take what a civil servant says to you when you are a cabinet minister, as I was, and say, ‘Oh thank you very much indeed, that is absolutely the truth’ ... In the email I thought there was a slightly portentous statement where he said ‘don’t be afraid to speak truth unto power’. The word ‘truth’ is quite an interesting word. I would say actually the word should have been ‘opinion’ because I’ve had many times in the department where I have had civil servants sit in front of me telling me adamantly that things can or cannot be done and you look at that and you argue back and debate about it and think about it and then you come back and say there are different ways to do things, and I don’t agree with that and I’m going to do this. Ministers have to make those decisions. That is what they are there for ...
These are opinions from a civil servant who disagrees with government. They are not tablets of stone.
- He said diplomats like Rogers were right to tell ministers what other EU states were saying about what was achievable in the Brexit negotiations, but that ministers were entitled to ignore their warnings.
There’s a problem here for the civil service. They have never faced a challenge like this before. They are having to tear up the rule book on what they normally do with regard to their relationships in the European Union. They are now having to accept and understand that we are leaving. That means, therefore, that sometimes the views and opinions of what you keep feeding back from various members states isn’t actually quite relevant because what you are going to get at this stage is an absolute worst case scenario. ‘No, no, you can’t have that, you won’t get this.’ Absolutely right to feed that back. But ministers have to sift that and decide, ‘ultimately, no, what we are going to do is this.’
- He said the person replacing Rogers would not have to be a committed supporter of Brexit. He or she would just have to be committed to delivering what the public wanted, Duncan Smith said.
There are plenty of other civil servants - and by the way they don’t have to be absolute advocates of leaving the EU - they simply have to accept that when push comes to shove they must deliver on what that mandate was, to leave the European Union.
- He claimed that EU itself did not know what it wanted from the Brexit talks.
The commission does not want to have parallel negotiations over what relationship we have [ie, it does not want to negotiate a potential future trade deal between the EU and the UK until after it has negotiated the UK’s withdrawal]. Many of the nation states do want that to happen. So in a sense it is all very well and good to say the UK government doesn’t know its own position. The truth is the European Union doesn’t know its own position because they are at odds with each other over what they think should happen.
As an example, he said that a friend of his had recently attended a meeting where Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, told senior business figures that she wanted the nation states to run the negotiations, not the European commission, because they did not want the commission to spoil trade relationships.
Duncan Smith also claimed that this EU uncertainty meant that questions about what the UK wanted were currently irrelevant.
What we want and what we decide we might want is also irrelevant until we know what the other side actually wants and what they are saying.
- He claimed that he did know what the government’s Brexit plan was. Asked what the government’s objective was, he replied:
Yes, it’s very simple, we are leaving the European Union. We are leaving the rule of European law. We are taking back control of our laws.
He was interrupted by Powell laughing at the simplicity of his answer.
Updated
Former Foreign Office chief says it would be wrong to insist on replacing Rogers with pro-Brexit diplomat
Earlier Sir Simon Fraser, the former head of the Foreign Office, was on the Today programme talking about Sir Ivan Rogers. Fraser said that he worked with Rogers for “many years” and he rejected claims that Rogers was not tough enough when David Cameron was conducting his EU renegotiation. Fraser said:
Anyone who knows Ivan, who’s worked with him, will know absolutely that he was not someone who was ready to take no for an answer. He was a very persistent negotiator, he showed lots of determination and he worked incredibly hard to achieve the government’s objectives.
Fraser said that Rogers’ departure was a loss to the government.
[Rogers] is a highly intelligent, knowledgeable and experienced official and one of the greatest experts, if I can use the expert word, that we have on European matters in the British civil service.
I do think that his sort of in-depth knowledge and expertise is a loss as we go into what is going to be, as [Brexit secretary] David Davis himself has said, a very complex set of negotiations.
He said that the fact that the government did not have a plan for Brexit, as Rogers said in his email, was “a matter for concern”.
We know that the government did not have a clear plan for Brexit after the referendum; we know that the government has been through a process of gathering information across Whitehall in order to put a negotiating position together, and we know that that is taking quite a lot of time. So that is a matter for concern.
And he said it would be a mistake for the government to insist on replacing Rogers with a pro-Brexit diplomat, as hardcore Eurosceptics are demanding.
When you appoint ambassadors, you don’t appoint them for what they believe; you appoint them for what they know. And I think what we need in Brussels is somebody who has experience, who’s going to be a real professional negotiator, who will be sitting in a room with lots of other very experienced and knowledgeable negotiators, and who will be hold his or her own in that negotiation. We have someone leading this negotiation who believes in Brexit, and that is David Davis, that is the role of the minister. The role of the ambassador and the civil servants is to give clear, dispassionate, objective advice.
I think there are a lot of highly professional people in the civil service, who do want to do their duty and to serve their country. There will be many people I think who will be keen to take this role on. There are experienced people in the Foreign Office, in the Treasury, in the Cabinet Office, who are qualified to do it.
I’ve taken the quotes from the Press Association and from PoliticsHome.
Updated
Ivan Rogers couldn't be trusted by ministers, claims Duncan Smith
Sir Ivan Rogers, who announced his surprise resignation as Britain’s ambassador to the UK yesterday, has used a farewell email to his staff to deliver a damning verdict on the government’s Brexit stance, saying that it has not yet decided its negotiating position and implying that ministers are guilty of “muddled thinking”. You can read the email in full here. And here is our overnight story.
Tory Brexiteers have been hitting back, briefing newspapers anonymously that Rogers was “no loss”. But on the Today programme Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative former work and pensions secretary, went further. He said Rogers was untrustworthy.
I don’t agree that somehow all [Rogers] did was write a little email to various other of his colleagues. He knew very well what he was doing. Probably also knew very well what he was doing when that previous email got leaked. It reeked ... it gets to a point when a civil servant starts to go public on stuff that you, as ministers, can no longer trust that individual. You must have absolute trust and cooperation and you cannot have this stuff coming out publicly. This is now the second time. It may actually prove that ministers may well be right to say that they weren’t prepared perhaps to trust him in quite the way they would have done with others. There are plenty of other civil servants who didn’t behave like this.
Duncan Smith’s allegation of disloyalty is a strong one, but he did not cite evidence to back it up. I’m not aware of any evidence that shows that Rogers himself leaked the email he wrote to his staff about his departure yesterday, although it is fair to assume that he must have realised someone would release it to the media. The second incident that Duncan Smith was talking about was the revelation that Rogers told ministers it could take 10 years to negotiate a trade deal with the EU. But there was no leaked email, contrary to what Duncan Smith told Today; the BBC broke the story by just reporting that that was what Rogers was saying. And, again, there is no evidence that Rogers was the source.
I will covering the row in detail as the day goes on and I will be posting more from Duncan Smith’s interview shortly.
There is not much else on the agenda, apart from a speech by Andrea Leadsom, the environment secretary, to the Oxford farming conference at 9am. But, as usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
Updated
