Embattled prime minister Theresa May is coming under pressure to commit to a pre-resignation machinery of government change to get her divisive EU withdrawal deal a crucial Commons majority.
CSW understands that a group of hard-to-win-over MPs has suggested that splitting the Foreign and Commonwealth Office into two distinct departments would be sufficient “raw meat” to get crucial extra votes through the “Aye Lobby” to secure a Brexit deal.
One longstanding Eurosceptic said creating a distinct Foreign Office on the one hand – and a separate Commonwealth Office on the other – would be a way to “undo decades of damage” that could be traced back as far as 1945’s Yalta Conference.
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“In a post-Brexit world it would allow us to make the most of our historic allegiances,” they said.
“India and Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand, the United States and Canada, China and Malaysia… there’s a massive list of nations that could join the ‘new’ Commonwealth Office.
“Everyone else could go off to the FO and eat garlic sausage and Époisses to their heart’s content, washing it down with as much Petit Chablis as they liked.
“At the Commonwealth Office, meanwhile, we would showcase fare the Brussels machine has suppressed for too long: pickled-onion flavour Monster Munch and Jammie Dodgers, quaffed with invigoratingly fizzy dandelion and burdock.”
Long-term Whitehall-watcher Pete Riddle said that although the strategy appeared simple, machinery of government changes always had knock-on effects.
He explained that while May was under pressure to make even more grand gestures to the right of her party, Remainers who accepted that June 2016’s referendum result must be honoured would probably have to be brought onside with their own machinery of government change.
“Hard as it may be to believe, there are some that argue a new department should be created to aid what they see as the UK’s inevitable re-entry to the European Union,” he said.
“Essentially, the argument is that someone needs to maintain the essential links that will be required when the UK tires of eating chicken that tastes of Domestos, washed down with pondwater.
“Some wag will doubtless come up with a catchy acronym for a new Shadow Ministry for Integrating Later with Europe."
FDA general secretary Penny Daveman told CSW she had mixed views on the reports.
“On the one hand this is really good news for senior public-sector leaders looking for new opportunities and would-be leaders seeking their next step up the career ladder,” she said.
“On the other hand, it is totally batshit. You couldn’t make it up.”
Update on 1 April, 12:00: Congratulations to readers who spotted this news story was an April Fool's Day joke.