Former ambassador to EU leaves with immediate effect and FCO says decision was entirely his

Sir Ivan Rogers has resigned from the civil service four days after stepping down from his post at the UK’s ambassador to the EU.



A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said Rogers would be paid three months salary in lieu of his notice period, but had not sought a payoff and would not be paid one.

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“Sir Ivan Rogers resigned as UK permanent representative to Brussels on 3 January. He did not seek any further civil service appointment and has therefore resigned from the civil service with immediate effect. We are grateful for Sir Ivan’s work in Brussels and across a number of other senior positions in the civil service,” the spokesman said.

Asked whether any attempts had been made to keep Rogers in the civil service, the spokesman said only that the decision to depart had been entirely his.

Last month Rogers was criticised by Tory sceptics for warning that it might take as long as a decade for the UK to fully break from the EU. Downing Street said at the time that Rogers had been conveying the views of some European leaders rather than giving his own assessment.

In a frank email to civil servants explaining his abrupt departure, Rogers made clear he had been frustrated by politicians who disliked his warnings about the potential pitfalls in the Brexit process.

“I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power. I hope that you will support each other in those difficult moments where you have to deliver messages that are disagreeable to those who need to hear them,” he wrote.

Implying that civil servants or politicians in London were trying to take over the Brexit talks, Rogers said the structure of the UK negotiating team in Brussels needed “rapid resolution”.

“Multilateral negotiating experience is in short supply in Whitehall, and that is not the case in the [European] commission or in the council,” he added.

Theresa May ignored calls to give the EU ambassador role to a wholehearted Brexiter when she appointed career diplomat Sir Tim Barrow as Rogers’ replacement on Wednesday.



The decision was intended to reassure those in the civil service who feared the role would be politicised. Whitehall insiders have said some top civil servants were gravely concerned by the way Rogers was treated, as well as by mounting problems over Brexit preparations.

Complaints from mandarins include concerns that May’s office has centralised control, lacks communication skills and has been too quick to adopt a confrontational style with those offering independent advice.

Whitehall sources said senior civil servants from several departments were considering stepping down from their positions. However, it was too soon to say whether this was part of an exodus of talent or a cyclical loss of staff, one source said.

The day after Rogers quit, the former welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith made a series of media appearances to claim that Rogers had leaked information embarrassing to ministers, was not trusted and was among a group of civil servants who too unthinkingly accepted the word of other EU nations.

Another former minister, Peter Lilley, accused Rogers of “sour grapes”, while the Tory MP Dominic Raab said the senior diplomat’s “heart hasn’t really been in Brexit”.

The criticisms prompted an unusually strong defence from the head of the top civil servants’ union, who accused May of failing to back the independence of its senior mandarins.

Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, said the prime minister was “sitting back” while Rogers and the role of the civil service as a whole was criticised.

Barrow was the UK ambassador to Moscow until 2015 and in March last year succeeded Sir Simon Gass as political director at the Foreign Office. He has extensive European experience and acted as first secretary at UKRep, the term used for the UK ambassador to the EU.

Barrow’s appointment is also a victory for the Foreign Office, which lost the UKRep post to former Treasury officials in 2012.

A Downing Street spokesperson described Barrow as “a seasoned and tough negotiator, with extensive experience of securing UK objectives in Brussels”, adding: “He will bring his trademark energy and creativity to this job, working alongside other senior officials and ministers to make a success of Brexit.”