The face of official British self-abasement
Confirmation that the Foreign Office was a hostile block to restored British self-government
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In the UK, civil servants have a duty to be impartial. Forming a permanent administrative class, they are expected to serve governments of different complexions with equal diligence and trustworthiness, guaranteed by their objectivity. They are not supposed to reveal their political opinions.
The former head of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Lord McDonald of Salford GCMG KCVO, told BBC interviewer Laura Kuenssberg in an interview for the BBC 2 documentary series State of Chaos (broadcast last night) that the day after the Brexit vote in 2016 he decided to break this rule.
“The main feeling in the Foreign Office building was of mourning,” McDonald said. “People were in tears. People were in shock”. On “this solitary occasion”, he said, he decided to let his colleagues and therefore also ministers know that he had voted to remain in the European Union. “I felt that they would assume that in any case”, he laughed, “so I decided to embrace it”.
The startled Kuenssberg commented:
Having covered politics for more than. 20 years, though, it’s extraordinary to hear you tell us that you told people how you voted. Because that principle of impartiality is what holds the civil service together.
To which McDonald, now Master of Christ’s College Cambridge, said:
I was trying to maintain credibility, and trying to convey a message to a group of people, most of whom I felt had voted to remain in the EU, that their personal feelings were beside the professional point. It was a personal decision; my board were not… entirely comfortable, and all these years later you can have a conversation about was it the right decision.
Not everyone saw it that way. The former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara said:
Wow … I don’t know why that would be a good or helpful thing. Express.
