Why the civil service’s Brexit approach is damaging the negotiations

Sir Mark Sedwill, the acting cabinet secretary, wrote to the Times on Tuesday to defend the honour of Olly Robbins, the Prime Minister’s EU adviser, who is credited, if that is the mot juste, with delivering Brexit. He was right to do so, because Mr Robbins is not allowed, by the rules, to defend himself, and ministers have unfortunately become readier than in the past to brief against civil servants. (And it must be said, civil servants to brief against ministers: look at the torrent of stuff against Boris Johnson while he was Foreign Secretary.) But I would ask Sir Mark to consider the question as it looks from the outside. I suppose I know several scores of existing and former civil servants and diplomats quite well, some very well. Among them, I have come across three or four who are pro-Brexit, quite a large minority whose views are genuinely unidentifiable, and dozens and dozens who are anti-Brexit, some passionately so.