“Tiggerish and irrepressible”: the UK’s new ambassador to the EU
Gary Gibbon-4 JAN 2017
The new UK Representative to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, formerly our man in Moscow, is known to some around the Foreign Office as “Deep State.” That, I hear, is recognition of his all-knowing, omnipresence and a whiff of the “covert.” “He suddenly appears beside you when you were looking for him,” one Whitehall source said.
One diplomat said he preferred to describe Sir Tim as “very tiggerish, irrepressible, not things you’d naturally associate with Ivan (Rogers).”
There is clearly relief across Whitehall that they’ve found someone with experience of the EU who commands wide respect amongst ministers who’ve dealt with him. Philip Hammond is said to have greatly respected Sir Tim when Mr Hammond was at the Foreign Office. David Davis was asked for his approval of the new name. It was, as a courtesy, shared with Liam Fox, one source said.
Sir Tim is known as a networker, gregarious and hugely creative. “He comes up with 27 ideas before lunchtime. Some of them, of course, are mad,” one old Foreign Office friend said.
There is relief in some quarters of Whitehall after suggestions in some newspapers that the government might look outside diplomacy for this top job, to business or politics. Instead, they have “one of our own” in the position. Any street parties planned for the death of the establishment may have to be postponed.
But how did we get here?
Friends of Sir Ivan Rogers feel his position became impossible after the leak of his own October email to the PM just ahead of the December European Council meeting. Sir Ivan is said to be 100 per cent convinced that the leak came from Theresa May’s most senior aides, her joint chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy. They, the argument runs, had lost trust in him and wanted a fresh face. No. 10 says that’s a baffling theory with no clear motive.
What does Ivan Rogers’ departure tell us about the difficulties facing Sir Tim Barrow?
He speaks in his email to UKRep staff in Brussels of the UK being seriously out-gunned by the size of the forces and expertise marshalled on the EU side. There is some fear amongst diplomats that UKRep could lose some important officials thinking that they’re expertise isn’t being valued and their operation could be marginalised in the Brexit talks. Sir Ivan in his letter sounds like a man keen to make sure his exit doesn’t trigger an exodus.
Sir Ivan hints at difficulties getting certain points across to government figures. He takes a swipe at those who think when you leave the EU you can slip magically into a free trade agreement. Sir Ivan is said to believe that the only free trade environment that is not underpinned by agreement is smuggling. He is believed to think that some ministers consistently under-estimate how long it will take to construct a comprehensive new relationship even if both sides roughly agree on the destination. That, I understand, is an argument that Sir Ivan may have had repeatedly in private with the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, David Davis.
Sir Ivan Rogers had told friends before the referendum that he was happy to help with the Brexit negotiations if the country voted that way and he was wanted; more recently he’s told friends that he was keen to carry on to the end of the negotiations. But enemies in Whitehall wished it otherwise. They ambushed him with their leak of his email in December and he retaliated with an ambush of his own and a fresh email this week. Now his critics will hope they’ve killed off the first 2017 twist in the Brexit saga with a speedy and popular appointment.
e are entering the New Year with many self-contradictions. In politics, at least one stands out. Consider this for instance: The government has mooted a plan for a super-minister who would lord over all others and provincial councils in affairs related to economic planning and foreign investment. The relevant bill which needed the approval of the nine provincial councils was voted down by nearly all of them during the past two weeks. In the meantime, the government is promising a new constitution this year, which would presumably offer the maximum possible devolution of powers to the provincial councils to address the minority demands for self-determination. This is not to say either premise is bad, but they are self-contradictory. They are driven by two wholly different thinking; the former is intended to address real practical economic concerns and prop up economic development; the latter is to assuage emotive, mainly Tamil concerns on an equally emotive concept of Tamil nationhood. As history has shown with devastating consequences, when these primordial demands are not fulfilled, it makes neither economic development, nor peaceful cohabitation feasible -- even when those demands are granted, there is no guarantee they would serve either objective. 
party in the Central Government is also the ruling party of the provincial council. That is not to say there is a major consensus between the two on how the lives of the local electorate be bettered. That is not necessary because provincial councils provide none of that. But, when there is uniformity among those who rule the Centre and the provinces, at least the damage to the national policy can be avoided. Otherwise, provincial councils have the ability to obstruct the practical implementation of most national plans. (That explains the reluctance by successive governments to grant land powers to the provincial councils.)