Damian Green’s exit is good for the health of public life, but not for its economy

Mr Green was by far the most sincere and fervent ‘European’ sitting around the cabinet table

Mr Green was virtually a Heathite in his views on Europe, and an extremely rare beast in the modern Tory Party. (EPA)

Only a few years ago, when the ill-fated notion of an In/Out referendum was first being put about as a way of sellotaping the Conservative Party together, Damian Green said this: “There is a fantastic vision of an EU which remains a single market, including the UK, but which in all other respects allows the UK to be outside. This is a fantastic vision precisely because it is a fantasy. What is in this for those on the other side of the negotiation?”

He went on: “Ask yourself the simple question. Would we be more or less likely to negotiate a good deal for UK-based companies wishing to trade with Europe if we had pulled out of the EU? And ask yourself another simple question. If you were a company in China or India wishing to set up a base in Europe, would you be more or less likely to choose Britain if we had withdrawn?”

Nothing has happened since the referendum in 2016 that suggests that Mr Green has ever changed his private view about Europe or the Leavers’ fantastical vision for Brexit. Although, pragmatically, he held a senior position in a Cabinet determined to take Britain out of the European Union, Mr Green was by far the most sincere and fervent “European” sitting around that cabinet table.

His presence was not only a personal balm for Theresa May, but an important counter to the sovereignty fetishists who not only wish to put “hard Brexit” forward as a negotiating ploy, but who actually believe it would be in the British national interest to do so. In his last official act as First Secretary of State and de facto deputy prime minister, Mr Green gave evidence to the House of Lords EU Select Committee on the implications of Brexit for Ireland and the devolved administrations of the UK. He made the Government’s case as best he could, with a strongly European tinge. That was what he was for. As when he sat next to Ms May during Prime Minister’s Questions, it seemed business as usual, although with a dark cloud over his head. A few hours later he was gone.

Even if Theresa May wanted to replace him, she could not, as there are no longer any plausible eligible Europhiles left in the higher echelons who could possibly be appointed. Mr Green was virtually a Heathite in his views on Europe, and an extremely rare beast in the modern Tory party. To use a popular analogy, Mr Green was a bit of a political unicorn in that regard, tarnished as his reputation was.

Mr Green’s departure was inevitable – and essentially self-inflicted – because of the “misleading” and “inaccurate” statements he made about what he did and did not know about the Kompromat on his office computer a decade ago. Yet his leaving the Government is not in the UK national interest. Yes, it was a positive outcome for standards in public life, as the balanced report by the Cabinet Secretary strongly suggested, and a moral imperative; but there is no doubt that it will probably, in due course, damage the British economy. It is as well to recognise that likely reality.

During the course of 2017 Ms May has proved that she has a certain steely determination to hang on to her job at virtually any cost, defy her critics and keep going. In its way it is admirable, even though many of her problems stemmed directly from her own decision to hold a disastrous, premature and unnecessary election. She may have said that she got her party and the country “into this mess” and was going to get them out of it, but the point is that at least some of this mess was her own doing. The only compensation is that, had she in fact won the three-figure strong and stable majority she sought, the UK’s exit from the EU would be even worse than it looks like being. Her success in the last-minute talks on the first phase of the exit was a personal triumph, though one that may well unravel. Her party conference speech, and the personal shortcomings of her minsters, were hardly her own fault.

Yet perseverance and a steady nerve are not enough. The Prime Minister’s weaknesses have also been cruelly exposed over the past 12 months. She does lack a “vision” for Brexit. She is uneasy in making the economic case for Brexit because she hasn’t been able to find one. She misjudged those early negotiations badly, making EU citizens in the UK hostages to no purpose. She thinks that the sort of fudges that can hold her party together and which work in the ambiguous political environment of Northern Ireland can be transposed into hard law and customs regulations.

Ms May has an insular and cronyistic preference to making policy but, having lost so many trusted advisers and confidants, she is now forced into a more collegiate approach. She is robotic and wary of the media and the public, and afraid of open debate. She remains, then, diminished, and only survives because her party fears the blond-haired alternative even more. Mr Green, a dedicated European surrounded by vicious Europhobes, might be forgiven for concluding he is better off out of it.