Who runs Britain?

Raab's resignation shows the power of the Civil Service

Attribution: Chris McAndrew licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

News that Dominic Raab has resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary should surprise no one. From the moment allegations about him bullying civil servants were first made, his fate was sealed. And when the findings from an investigation into his behaviour were delivered to the Prime Minister yesterday, the only unknown was whether Raab would resign or be fired. 

Britain has a serious problem with bullying but it is not the one that cock-a-hoop social media commentators, currently gloating that ‘the bully’ has gone, think it is. Bullying is not endemic. Going to work is not trauma-inducing. The problem we have with bullying is that it is an ill-defined, entirely subjective term that weaponizes hurt feelings by turning colleagues into victims and aggressors.

Once, bullying meant something specific. It referred to serious, systematic acts of physical aggression and intimidation by one child against another. From here, the definition expanded to encompass name-calling and verbal insults, before expanding again to include a lack of eye-contact or leaving people out of activities. As the definition of bullying expanded, it migrated from schools to the workplace. 

As Raab has discovered, all it takes for someone to be a victim of bullying today is for them to declare themselves to be a victim of bullying. Evidence is irrelevant, hurt feelings speak their own truth. Allegation alone demarcates victim and villain. For this reason, from the moment he was labelled a bully, it became impossible for Raab to maintain his position. His inevitable resignation makes clear how allegations of bullying upend workplace relationships, particularly ones premised upon hierarchy and accountablility. 

The full report into Raab’s conduct has not yet been published. Objective facts are hard to come by but leaked accounts have been hyperbolic. Much was made of the fact that he allegedly ‘hurled three tomatoes’ across a room. In the ensuing press coverage, readers had to work hard to spot that the offending tomatoes had been aimed at the bin, and not a member of staff. But Raab’s response to the allegations also suggests they lacked substance. As he makes clear in his resignation letter, he called for the inquiry himself and undertook to resign if found guilty of any bullying whatsoever, hardly the actions of a guilty man. Indeed, Raab notes, the report ‘dismissed all but two of the claims leveled against me.’ He writes that Mr Tolley, the report’s author, ‘concluded that I had not once, in four and a half years, sworn or shouted at anyone, let alone thrown anything or otherwise physically intimidated anyone, nor intentionally sought to belittle anyone.’ 

It would be easy to write this affair off as a spat between a government minister and his senior civil servants. But, as Raab spells out, what’s really at stake is the fundamental question of who runs Britain: elected government ministers or civil servants. 

Raab notes, correctly, that the case against him sets ‘a dangerous precedent for the conduct of good government’. He explains, ‘Ministers must be able to exercise direct oversight with respect to senior officials over critical negotiations conducted on behalf of the British people, otherwise the democratic and constitutional principle of Ministerial responsibility will be lost.’ If elected ministers are unable to hold civil servants to account then power does not lie with the people but with appointed officials. This is not democracy but technocracy. 

In weaponizing allegations of bullying, and subjecting Raab to what he has described as a ‘Kafkaesque saga … shorn of the safeguards most people enjoy’, civil servants have well and truly gained the upper hand over elected ministers. As Raab points out: ‘In setting the threshold for bullying so low, this inquiry has set a dangerous precedent. It will encourage spurious complaints against Ministers, and have a chilling effect on those driving change on behalf of your government — and ultimately the British people.’

According to Keir Starmer, that Raab resigned rather than being sacked ‘shows the continual weakness of the Prime Minister’. Starmer could not be more wrong. Sunak is indeed weakened by Raab’s resignation; but he is weakened because he should have stood firm, backed his Deputy Prime Minister and refused to accept his resignation. Only then would the civil service be reminded that power lies with the people and not with appointed bureaucrats.

Starmer, Emily Thornberry and all the others lining up to condemn Sunak for tardiness think that when it comes to allegations of bullying, accusation alone should be sufficient to indicate guilt and have people sacked. They are either too ignorant or too politically-blinkered to see that this hands unprecedented power over to dissatisfied, unelected civil servants in a way that flies in the face of democracy. That calls are now being made for Raab to resign as a Member of Parliament and for a by-election to be held in his constituency confirms that this is no longer about Raab’s behaviour but about winning a battle to remove power from Conservative government ministers.

There are plenty of good reasons to be critical of Dominic Raab. Topping the list is his decision to take a holiday after US troops withdrew from Afghanistan and his delayed return home when the need to evacuate Kabul became clear. But for his political career to end over allegations of bullying says far more about the pathetic state of our political class than it does about Raab’s lack of competence. 

An edited version of this article, written before the release of the Tolley report, was published at Spiked: https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/21/the-dominic-raab-bullying-saga-is-a-democratic-outrage/