Britain’s outgoing ambassador to the EU has taken a parting shot at his soon to be former bosses, talking in a letter to his staff of ‘muddled thinking’, a shortage of negotiating experience in Whitehall and an unwillingness to hear bad news.
Sir Ivan Rogers unexpectedly and abruptly resigned on Tuesday amid tensions with Number 10, with colleagues saying he was “frustrated” his warnings on the complexity of Brexit were being ignored.
Sir Ivan, who has warned that leaving the EU could take many years and that a post-exit soft landing might be impossible, told staff in Brussels on Tuesday he would step down before Theresa May triggers the Article 50 exit clause, expected in March.
The departure of one of Britain’s most experienced EU negotiators reflected tensions between Sir Ivan and the prime minister’s team, who believe a favourable trade deal can be hammered out before the end of next year.
The move surprised Mrs May, who will set out more details of her Brexit strategy within days.
“It would obviously make no sense for my role to change hands later this year,” Sir Ivan says in a diplomatically phrased but occasionally pointed letter to staff, who he says will have to deliver messages that are “disagreeable to those who need to hear them”.
“Serious multilateral negotiating experience is in short supply in Whitehall, and that is not the case in the [European] Commission or in the Council,” he writes. “The government will only achieve the best for the country if it harnesses the best experience we have . . . and negotiates resolutely. Senior ministers . . . also need from you detailed, unvarnished — even where this is uncomfortable — and nuanced understanding of the views, interests and incentives of the other 27.
“I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power.”
He writes that the make-up of the UK’s negotiating team and the allocation of roles needed rapid resolution, and a way of working between London and UK representatives in Brussels needed strengthening.
“Contrary to the beliefs of some, free trade does not just happen when it is not thwarted by authorities,” he says.
I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power
The ambassador had become a conduit of difficult messages to Number 10, including a warning that other European countries were unlikely to give Britain good terms on access to the EU’s single market and customs union if Mrs May insisted on limiting free movement and leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
Sir Nicholas Macpherson, a former head of the UK Treasury, described Sir Ivan’s departure as “wilful and total destruction of EU expertise”. He pointed out that other senior UK officials with EU experience were not directly involved in Brexit preparations.
While he had a longstanding relationship with Mrs May and was consulted by her on Brexit strategy, Sir Ivan’s relations with some of the prime minister’s team began to deteriorate in recent months.
His private warnings to Downing Street that EU partners believed any trade deal might not be agreed and ratified until the mid-2020s were leaked last month before an EU summit, prompting outrage in pro-Brexit quarters.
Mrs May left the summit without giving the customary press conference; the Daily Mail reported that “the knives are out” for Sir Ivan because of his “gloomy pessimism”. Mrs May and David Davis, Brexit minister, later insisted that Britain could wrap up Brexit talks next year.
Sir Ivan’s term in Brussels was due to end in October 2017 and a government spokesman said his decision would allow “a successor to be appointed before the UK invokes Article 50 by the end of March”. Sir Ivan could not be reached for comment.
Dominic Raab, a former Tory minister, spoke for many Eurosceptics in praising Sir Ivan’s record in public service, while adding: “He didn’t exactly hide the fact that his heart wasn’t in Brexit, and he was due to step down in the autumn anyway.”
Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, said the resignation of “somebody as experienced as Sir Ivan Rogers is a body blow to the government’s Brexit plans”.
Sir Ivan is a Whitehall veteran who started his career at the Treasury. He served as private secretary to both Kenneth Clarke while chancellor and Tony Blair during his time as prime minister. He left the civil service in 2006 for a four-year spell working for Citigroup.
His Brussels experience began as chief of staff to Leon Brittan, the late EU commissioner who was overseeing the bloc’s trade policy through the late-1990s.
He has long seen Britain leaving the EU single market and customs union as the most likely Brexit scenario, and believed the biggest remaining question was whether this outcome would be achieved through an orderly and managed transition or via a sharp exit with no withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform said in a tweet on Tuesday: “Ivan Rogers’ resignation makes a good deal on Brexit less likely. One of the very few people at top of Brit government who understands [the] EU.”
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