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LONDON — Being Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser is hard work, but someone has to do it. Or at least they did until now.
Christopher Geidt dramatically resigned as an independent adviser to Johnson this week, relinquishing his role as the man tasked with policing ministers’ conduct. And Downing Street has yet to commit to replacing it.
While he faced weeks of scrutiny for his stance on Johnson’s breach of Partygate coronavirus rules, including brutal media coverage of a parliamentary questioning on the matter, the straw that broke the camel’s back appears to have been more prosaic: a dispute. technique on protective steel tariffs.
That reasoning caught Westminster watchers by surprise, with some seeing a decent man who has been looking for a way out for months as the Johnson government lurches from one storm to another.
A former head of a government department said Geidt’s problem was that “he is a man of honour, with poor communication skills, up against someone who is absolutely cunning and ruthless.”
The mystery only serves to illustrate how consistently Johnson has tried to flout the normal rules of Westminster and how, despite months of scandal, he continues to do so.
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When the start came, Geidt didn’t exactly hold back. In a letter published Thursday, the outgoing supervisor said Johnson had forced him into an “impossible and hateful” position by asking him to consider measures he said risked a “deliberate” breach of ministerial code. In British political parlance, that’s pretty damning.
Downing Street declined to confirm exactly what those “measures” were when pressed by journalists, but Johnson’s own response to Geidt specifies that “they could be in conflict with obligations” of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In his own letter, Johnson specifically referred to the UK’s independent Trade Remedies Authority, a body designed to intervene in trade disputes.
But those references have trade experts scratching their heads and are prompting broader questions about why exactly Geidt pulled the trigger.
The TRA row is certainly controversial. The government is considering extending a series of tariffs intended to protect domestic steelmakers from a flood of Chinese imports, but critics say it is flirting with a breach of international law.
The body, set up to investigate allegations of unfair trade practices, previously advised ministers to remove some of those safeguards. Other countries have expressed concern that maintaining the measures would violate WTO rules.
A spokesman for the prime minister suggested the matter was referred to Geidt because breaching an international treaty could be considered a breach of the ministerial code, which is overseen by the ethics adviser.
And yet, it is not immediately clear that extending protections to steel would necessarily violate WTO rules. “In these cases, the WTO panel rules on the legality, so until a ruling is made, the actions are not considered illegal or not,” said a former UK trade official.
It’s also unclear why the prime minister ended up asking Geidt for his advice at this point, if he didn’t when tariffs were initially reviewed and when the Johnson administration was already content to consider actions, particularly on the Brexit front, that challenge. . the international order.
Speaking on Thursday, the prime minister’s spokesman insisted it was “not unusual in itself” for the independent adviser to be consulted on such a matter.
However, two former Cabinet Office officials suggested that a conflict over trade rules was not the “killing moment” and instead marked a convenient point for Geidt to throw in the towel.
‘Unsatisfactory’
Geidt took office after devoting himself to the relatively gentile activities of herding Hebridean sheep and serving as private secretary to the queen. He was appointed after his predecessor, Alex Allan, resigned in protest when Johnson refused to accept his conclusion that Home Secretary Priti Patel had intimidated staff.
Since then, he has faced a series of uncomfortable challenges. Her first big job was to investigate the Prime Minister’s funding arrangements for the Downing Street flat refurbishment. He found that the prime minister had acted “recklessly” but cleared him of being deliberately misleading.
It later emerged that Johnson had withheld messages relevant to that investigation, but Geidt said his boss had not broken the ministerial code. Instead, he described the prime minister’s behavior as “clearly unsatisfactory.”
Geidt’s role came under intense scrutiny from Westminster amid Partygate, the government-wide scandal over parties involving government officials and ministers at the height of the UK’s COVID-19 lockdowns.
In the wake of a highly critical reporting by civil servant Sue Gray on the scandal, the previously secretive Geidt stepped up his criticism of Johnson, saying there was now a “legitimate question” about whether the prime minister had breached ministerial code when he was policed. fined for attending a lockdown meeting.
Appearing before a committee of MPs on Tuesday, Geidt admitted his “frustration” at Johnson’s response to the Partygate affair, but refused to see his own powers strengthened as a result. Parliamentarians and parliamentary drafters at Westminster were exasperated.
Catherine Haddon, a senior fellow at the Institute of Government think tank, said Geidt faced “a particularly difficult problem in the context of the ministerial code, his role within it and the government’s approach to the rule of law.”
“The mystery is what this particular case was about, but I think from Geidt’s point of view he was ready to walk and he got the bullet,” Haddon said.
A former Cabinet Office official pointed to a broader breakdown in relations at the heart of the government. They said: “If there had been trust, it seems like the kind of problem that could be solved. But if he thought the prime minister was an actor in bad faith, then he had to go.”
Westminster pranksters greeted the news of Geidt’s resignation with quips about who might be willing to take the job: Star Wars baddie Darth Vader, perhaps, or his own father.
But No. 10 responded by saying that, in fact, he may not be replaced at all. Instead, Johnson’s spokesman said, the government is “carefully considering” how the watchdog’s functions are best carried out.
Some think that replacing Geidt may simply be a waste of time under a prime minister who has made a point of doing things his own way.
“He doesn’t listen, because everything has worked together in his own mind to prove that he is infallible,” said a former ministerial colleague.
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