LONDON — Never mind the fight between Brussels and London. A different Brexit battle has been playing out of public view within the British government ministry charged with delivering the U.K. out of the EU.

The talk of the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) is a “schism” between Brexit Secretary David Davis and his top official, Oliver Robbins, the department’s permanent secretary. Their dispute is about style, substance and — of course — power.

In the months after the 2016 Brexit vote, the department struggled for solid footing, officials said. Critics in Brussels and London said it was too slow to clarify its negotiating position with Brussels. Behind the scenes, its top officials weren’t on the same page.

Then came the June snap election. Prime Minister Theresa May squandered her party’s majority and subsequently lost her two chiefs of staff along with much of her authority over her Cabinet.

But the vote helped clarify matters at DExEU. The victor in this bureaucratic power struggle is Davis, not Robbins. And his apparent triumph puts in charge of the talks a politician more committed to Brexit than either Robbins or his champion, Prime Minister May.

Davis and Robbins have opposing styles and little personal warmth.

The result is a more muscular, self-confident Department for Exiting the European Union which — despite the perception in Brussels of chaos in London — is asserting more control over Britain’s divorce proceedings, said one former senior government official.

This article is based on interviews with half a dozen current and former government officials, most of whom didn’t want to be named.

Opposites that don’t attract

At the start of the Brexit talks this spring, Robbins was most often mentioned in London or Brussels as the man who would run the Brexit show day to day. His dual roles as head of the Brexit department and May’s chief EU adviser put him at the center of decision-making on Brexit.

Davis was frequently frozen out of key decision-making, according to four current and former government insiders.

“Robbins had clashes with David Davis, undoubtedly,” said one former government insider familiar with the two men. “Part of the problem was that he tends to go and do stuff, not necessarily by reference to David, and that irritated him.

“They had — I wouldn’t say an altercation — but David was very forthright with him and reminded him who’s in charge of the department,” the official added, saying that the incident occurred at the height of tensions in early 2017.

Davis and Robbins have opposing styles and little personal warmth.

Robbins is the consummate Whitehall official — meticulous and dispassionate — and “extremely high caliber,” according to one former official who has worked alongside him.

Davis, though more analytical and measured than his “Brexit bulldog” caricature suggests, is more of a maverick, and, most importantly, a bullish and long-term supporter of Brexit. The two men have developed a functional working relationship, according to one official, but do not fraternize outside of work.

Though some suggested tensions remain, the dynamic between the two men has improved in recent months, according to several officials.

Prior to the arrival in April of Philip Rycroft as Robbins’ No. 2 official, the extreme workload required of someone running a brand-new Whitehall department, managing a negotiating strategy and advising the prime minister, led Robbins to neglect his working relationship with Davis, another senior official said.

“That Robbins-May dynamic is a constant source of frustration for David Davis" — A senior official

Rycroft has taken on much of the day-to-day running of the Brexit department, along with the highly-rated director general Sarah Healey — relieving some of the pressure on Robbins. Colleagues at the department are nevertheless fond of the permanent secretary, one official said, who takes a keen interest in ensuring his staff remains motivated in what the official characterized as a highly productive but high-stress department.

Robbins has a longstanding relationship with May, having served with her at the Home Office. They are “unbelievably close,” a former colleague of them both said. An ex-official added: “She clearly trusts him, more so than some of the other senior Europe advisers, and other permanent secretaries. You can see it whenever they interact, she takes his steer on a lot of this stuff.”

It is this closeness that is the root of the schism with Davis.

Prior to the election, there were “significant numbers of written advice items which went straight from Olly to the prime minister and weren’t necessarily seen by David Davis beforehand,” the ex-official said, adding that Davis was even frozen out of the early drafting of May’s pivotal Lancaster House speech in January, in which the prime minister laid out her vision for Brexit.

One senior official said problems remain. “Olly does things which DD isn’t aware of,” the official said. “That Robbins-May dynamic is a constant source of frustration for David Davis.”

Jill Rutter, a former Whitehall official who is now a director at the Institute for Government think tank, said the tensions were built into Robbins’ dual role. “The creation of a freestanding Brexit department always had a potential for tension and overload,” she said. “For that structure to work needs absolute unity of purpose and trust between the PM and her Brexit secretary.”

Responding to allegations of tension between Davis and Robbins, a DExEU spokesman said, “The secretary of state and the permanent secretary are working closely together to deliver a Brexit deal that works in the best interests of the whole U.K.”

Both Robbins and Davis declined to comment.

June aftermath

The resignations of May’s powerful chiefs of staffs, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, shortly after the election caused a significant change in the May/Davis/Robbins dynamic.

Robbins was not in May’s “inner circle” with Timothy and Hill, one former colleague said, but was firmly in “the next circle out.” At the same time, the departure of “the chiefs,” who kept an iron grip on government strategy and communications ,empowered cabinet ministers and government departments — not least Davis and DExEU.

“No. 10 has had less of a leash on them since the election, and they have taken the opportunity,” said the ex-official. “This is partly DD telling the department to do this.”

Davis has shored up his influence by strengthening his own long-standing political relationship with May. Though touted as a possible successor to the prime minister, he has sought to position himself as a scrupulous loyalist.

“On the morning of 9th June, the day after the election, DD was in there being an adviser, trying to stake his position,” the ex-official said. “He tried to place himself very firmly in the inner circle in the immediate post-election aftermath. Since, he has placed himself at the center of the negotiations and used the changed dynamic at No. 10, the prime minister’s relative weakness at Cabinet, and the departure of Nick, to get more of a grip.”

“He must have been the first minister to speak to her that day,” a current official said of Davis’ alignment with May the day after the election.

Davis’ allies, nevertheless, speak of him as a serious leadership contender and point to that as the cause of the improved relationship but also a potential source of future tension.

“The prime minister is personally weakened since the election. David Davis, personally, I would say, is in a strengthened position. I think that Robbins probably recognizes that shift in strength,” said one senior MP and Davis ally.

“You must not overlook the fact that Robbins is a highly, highly competent operator” — Senior MP

One of the senior officials said that Robbins would not be thinking in terms of his own Whitehall future, but another suggested that the political change in fortunes may have affected him: “Olly made a bad political choice. He tied his colors to May’s mast and burned his bridges with Davis. He pinned everything on his relationship with Theresa May. If the prime minister is gone by October, what happens to Robbins?”

The senior MP agreed that if May were to go, “certainly, Robbins’ position would be weakened.”

Masters and servant

The upshot, one official said, is that Robbins is now much more clearly a servant of two masters than he was before.

Evidence of Davis and the Brexit department’s more assertive approach to Brexit, meanwhile, has been on show all summer, with the publication of a series of position papers, briefed to journalists, EU ambassadors and others on DExEU’s terms.

“Obviously they went through Cabinet and were agreed by the people on the relevant cabinet committee,” said the ex-official. “But the way that DExEU then went about briefing them and choosing when they were published, that was far more autonomous than would have been the case pre-election.”

Another current government official denied that the Brexit department’s recent shift in tone and its more forthright communications strategy were consequences of a change in the political balance of power, insisting that Davis had been just as willing to assert himself prior to the election.

Officials also questioned whether the shifting power dynamics would substantially alter the U.K.’s Brexit approach. May and Davis remain close allies and one ex-official said the disagreement between Davis and Robbins had been “less about the substance and more about [Davis’] role.”

However, for the future career trajectories of the two men at the heart of Brexit, the shifting balance of power could have major implications; much will depend on whether Robbins acknowledges that the scales could be tipping in Davis’ favor.

“You must not overlook the fact that Robbins is a highly, highly competent operator,” the senior MP said. “He’s tipped to be the next cabinet secretary [the head of the British civil service], or at least he was. You don’t get into that position in the British civil service if you’re not well capable of looking after yourself and assessing the political climate and trimming your position to suit it.”

“I think Olly is relatively safe,” the MP added. “But to the extent that he has allied himself with the prime minister, that’s obviously going to be a consideration. And if she does go, then it may well be the case that he goes too.”