Brexit secretary David Davis has sought to defuse tensions with No 10 by playing down reports that he might resign unless Theresa May sidelines Whitehall’s top civil servant working on Britain’s exit from the EU.



After unexpected interventions from the cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood and May’s close aide Gavin Barwell defending Oliver Robbins, an aide to Davis said on Sunday evening that no such threats had been made. The aide added that Davis considered Robbins to be “a fantastic civil servant”.

Davis’s intervention comes in a crucial week for May who faces a tense Brexit inner cabinet meeting on Wednesday when she is expected to discuss a plan, backed by Robbins, to create a customs partnership with the EU. Another option on the table is the so-called “max fac” – or maximum facilitation – solution, using technology to minimise the need for border checks.

According to the Sunday Times, Davis told the prime minister to ignore Robbins in favour of her ministers.



Robbins, tipped as a future cabinet secretary, was moved from Davis’s Brexit department into No 10 last year as May sought to take greater control over the process.



A former minister claimed that Tory backbenchers could be willing to oust May if she does not stop listening to her adviser on the customs partnership plan.

Q&A What is a customs union? Show Hide A customs union means that countries agree to apply no or very low tariffs to goods sold between them, and to collectively apply the same tariffs to imported goods from the rest of the world. International trade deals are then negotiated by the bloc as a whole. For the EU, this means deals are negotiated by by Brussels, although individual member state governments agree the mandate and approve the final deal. The EU has trade deals covering 69 countries, including Canada and South Korea, which the UK has been attempting to roll over into post-Brexit bilateral agreements. Proponents of an independent UK trade policy outside the EU customs union say Britain must forge its own deals if it is to take advantage of the world’s fastest-growing economies. However they have never explained why Germany manages to export more than three times the value in goods to China than Britain does, while also being in the EU customs union. Jennifer Rankin

“The prime minister would be extraordinarily unwise to take Robbins’s advice on this,” they told the newspaper. “There will be a very swift and very violent reaction. It will put the prime minister in personal peril.”



Attacks on Robbins provoked an angry response from civil servants on Sunday morning. Dave Penman, the head of the FDA union, said: “Is there a more despicable form of political cowardice than to allow anonymous briefings in your name to effectively call for a civil servant to be sacked?

“Civil servants advise, ministers decide. Politicians of all stripes know this. If David Davis leaves these comments from a ‘close ally’ out there unchallenged, it ultimately suggests that he supports them but isn’t brave enough to say so publicly.”

Heywood also took the unusual step of tweeting about criticisms of Robbins. After May’s close aide Gavin Barwell retweeted a statement from the chief whip, Julian Smith, saying “Attacking ind civil servants is deeply unfair”, Heywood wrote:

Sir Jeremy Heywood (@HeadUKCivServ) Thanks for your support. The Civil Service will always be true to its values - honesty, integrity, impartiality and objectivity. https://t.co/ff7iYOOI0m

Under Robbins’ plan, the UK would collect import tariffs on behalf of Brussels, while being free to set its own duties for goods bound for the UK. Pro-Brexit Conservatives have described the plan as unworkable and say it will allow Brussels to dictate UK trade policy.

An aide to Davis said the Sunday Times story was wrong, and added the Brexit secretary had praised Robbins in an interview with the newspaper on Monday but his words had not been published.

According to the aide, Davis said in the interview: “Olly is a fantastic civil servant ... He’s the sherpa, he’s the PM’s sherpa and what do sherpas do? They get you to base camp so you can make the assault on the summit. It’s fine.”

Senior Tory backbencher Bernard Jenkin said on Sunday that a customs partnership plan would mean the UK acting as a “tax collector” for the EU and would fail the prime minister’s key tests for a deal with Brussels.

“It doesn’t pass any of the key tests that the prime minister has outlined in her statements,” he told BBC1’s Sunday Politics programme.

“It doesn’t give us full regulatory autonomy so we wouldn’t be able to do free trade deals with other countries,” he added.

The Brexiter business group Leave Means Leave has called for Robbins to be sacked and “replaced by someone from outside the civil service who will take a tough line with Brussels”.

Richard Tice and John Longworth of the Brexit-backing business group wrote: “At each stage, Robbins has presided over a bungled negotiating position on behalf of the UK, giving leverage to the EU and acquiescing to their every whim in a way no business person would do.”

In a further development, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has told the UK the time has come for it to “resolve the contradictions” in its Irish border policy.

Writing in Ireland’s Sunday Independent newspaper ahead of a visit to the country on Monday, he said there will need to be “substantial progress” on the border issue by the next major meeting of EU leaders, who are due to assess progress on the border issue at a summit in June.