Why should the European Union jump into the Brexit fight, when the United Kingdom is doing such a great job of fighting itself?
For Brussels, the surprise resignation Tuesday of Sir Ivan Rogers, the U.K.’s seasoned and well-respected ambassador to the EU, provided the most dramatic and forceful validation yet of the bloc’s discipline in insisting that negotiations would not begin until the formal triggering of Article 50.
Over the half-year since the vote in favor of Brexit, leaders of the remaining EU27 have watched, with dismay, and no small amount of disbelief, as Britain battled itself: the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron; the messy in-fighting among Tories to replace him; the disintegration of the UKIP leadership, which led to a physical altercation in the European Parliament; and every manner of dispute and disagreement over whether Brexit should be hard or soft, quick or gradual, blah, blah, blah.
And then came the New Year’s bombshell by Rogers, hardly a knee-jerk defender of the European project, delivered in the form of a 1,365-word internal e-mail to U.K. diplomats in Brussels Tuesday, in which he said that Prime Minister Theresa May’s negotiating objectives are still a mystery even to government insiders and that London seemed ill-prepared for the fast-approaching talks against an EU apparatus well-schooled in complex multilateral bargaining.
He even suggested that technical expertise was being sidelined in London and urged his colleagues remain in Brussels “to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking.”
With such a spectacle taking place on the other side of the negotiating table, even the instinctively loquacious talking heads who prowl the halls of the European institutions were smart enough to recognize that it was a moment to shut up and simply watch the show.
Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, issued a terse statement Wednesday praising Rogers, while fending off repeated attempts by reporters at a news conference to squeeze just a bit more blood from the stone.
“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,” Bertaud said.
But won’t losing a well-known, well-regarded colleague at such a crucial time cause all sorts of problems?
“This is not something we are going to comment on at this stage,” Bertaud said. “As you know negotiations have not yet started and we are still waiting for the triggering of Article 50 to commence those negotiations.”
Another reporter tried to press Bertaud in French: Weren’t the very qualities the EU praised in Rogers what caused him to resign, because they put him out of step with the U.K. government?
“It’s not my place — it’s not the Commission’s place — to comment on whatever reasoning underpinned Sir Ivan Rogers’ resignation,” Bertaud replied. “I’ve made all the comments I can really make at this stage. Anything else we can help you with today?”
Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt, the chief Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament and leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, who is not known for holding his tongue, issued just a one-line statement, posted Wednesday afternoon on Twitter: “Best wishes to Sir Ivan Rogers, a much respected U.K. civil servant in Brussels — who knew what he was talking about.”
Malta, which this week took over the EU’s rotating presidency, also quickly ducked out of the crossfire between Downing Street and its now ex-permanent representative in Brussels.
“The Maltese presidency takes note of the British PR’s resignation and believes that this latest development is a domestic and personal issue,” a spokeswoman, Wendy Borg, said. “We wish him all the best.”
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who was in Slovenia Wednesday to address a diplomatic conference, reiterated that the EU was unified and confident in its Brexit strategy. “That’s totally a national issue for them,” Muscat said of the resignation, according to Reuters. “We stick to the point that there should be no negotiation without notification.”
Rogers’ resignation was preceded late last year by the resignation of his deputy, Shan Morgan, who is leaving shortly for a senior position in the Welsh government. Their departures are part of a recent pattern of officials, particularly those with experience or expertise in Europe, leaving government amid what appears to be pressure that civil servants show at least some enthusiasm for Brexit in their work.
The degree to which U.K. emissaries have become isolated in Brussels was clear at the European Council summit in December. May had agreed to skip a dinner where the other EU27 leaders were scheduled to discuss Brexit. The dinner ended up being scrapped because earlier discussions ran long, and when the conversation at the summit turned to Brexit, May simply ducked out and headed back to London.
One EU official who encountered Rogers at the summit said that he was totally sidelined, with Brexit having eliminated the influence the U.K. would normally wield on EU matters and effectively robbing the longtime diplomat of anything of substance to say to his fellow envoys.
That frustration ran through Rogers’ email message to his staff. It also underscores a serious risk to the U.K. that crucial but more mundane interests of Her Majesty’s Government, apart from the Brexit discussions, might not get the necessary attention or advocacy in coming months.
After all, the U.K. is expected to remain part of the EU for at least two more years and perhaps longer if there is a transition period leading to its final departure.
Rogers, in his note, suggested he was leaving behind a demoralized — and somewhat directionless — team.
“I know that this news will add, temporarily, to the uncertainty that I know, from our many discussions in the autumn, you are all feeling about the role of UKREP in the coming months and years of negotiations over Brexit,” he wrote. “I am sorry about that, but I hope that it will help produce earlier and greater clarity on the role that UKREP should play.”
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In the long term, EU officials may regret the departure of figures like Rogers who firmly grasp the bloc’s interests and the formidable challenges of forging any common position among its members. In the short term, however, the most immediate result seemed to be another public relations debacle for the U.K.
“His departure simply plays into the existing prevailing wisdom that Britain has not yet got its act together,” said Robin Niblett, director of the U.K.-based foreign affairs think tank Chatham House. “But the rest of the EU is on wait-and-see mode in any case, waiting for the key outlines of the deal.”
Still, Niblett said he did not expect much celebrating over Rogers’ departure among EU officials, like the Commission’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier. “I don’t think Michel Barnier and others will be sitting there rubbing their hands with glee,” Niblett said. “The EU needs a decent deal with the U.K. as much as the U.K. needs a decent deal with the EU.”
He added: “The bit that worries me most from the messaging of his departure letter is the sense that, at this critical moment where Britain needs to stand up and project its reputation for having one of the savviest negotiating teams of any EU country, it is instead starting to show itself undisciplined and lacking a coherent message.”
Charlie Cooper contributed reporting to this article.