To Whitehall, where Foreign Office staff are kicking up a fuss about the UK government’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. As the Times reports, last month over 300 civil servants wrote to Foreign Secretary David Lammy to protest the continued arms sales to Israel – blasting it as a ‘disregard for international law’. The mandarins also criticised Israel’s foreign minister’s visit to London that took place ‘despite concerns about violations of international law’ and insisted the Labour lot’s stance had led to ‘the erosion of global norms’. Oo er.
The letter didn’t much impress permanent secretary Sir Oliver Robbins and his deputy Nick Dyer. Responding, the duo stated it was in the civil servant job description to enact government policy ‘wholeheartedly’ – even if they disagreed with it. While there exist mechanisms in place for staffers to challenge policy they didn’t like, the pair said that if that didn’t work then mandarins should leave. They added: ‘If your disagreement with any aspect of government policy or action is profound, your ultimate recourse is to resign from the civil service. This is an honourable course.’ That’s them told!
For its part, the Foreign Office has said in a statement that staff are expected to provide impartial advice as is explained in their civil servant code. It added: ‘Since day one, this government has rigorously applied international law in relation to the war in Gaza… There are systems in place which allow [civil servants] to raise concerns if they have them.’
And yet the response of the top two has still sparked ‘outrage’, according to a civil servant signatory of the letter, while an ex-official who had sight of the exchange blasted Robbins’s reply as ‘obfuscation’. ‘This simply provides the government with supposed “plausible deniability”,’ they fumed, while the first raged to the Beeb: ‘[There’s] frustration and a deep sense of disappointment that the space for challenge is being further shut down.’ But annoyed as they may be by the response of their seniors, will there be a mass exodus of ‘honourable’ mandarins over the matter? Don’t hold your breath…
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