The Sorry Demise of Gavin Williamson

Staff Sergeant, pointing his pace-stick hard into the stomach of an officer cadet: “Sir, there is a shit at the end of this stick”. Officer Cadet: “Not at this end, Staff”

Anecdote from the late, great Keith Floyd.

 Huawei this?

Alphen, Netherlands, 2 May. How has Britain been reduced to this? Keith Floyd’s aphorism just about sum up relations within what is left of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Cabinet.  Yesterday, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was sacked for allegedly leaking details of a National Security Council meeting to a Daily Telegraph journalist. At the meeting Theresa May over-rode concerns from the security services to allow China’s Huawei to take part in the construction of Britain’s 5G critical infrastructure. Someone leaked her decision. Williamson categorically denies any wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a witch-hunt. If so, by whom and for what reason?

Let me state for the record that if Williamson is responsible for the leak then May had no choice but to sack him. Given the nature of national security and the risks unnamed people take daily to keep millions safe it is vital that secrecy is maintained at the highest levels of government. For too long now May’s Brexit-battered Administration has given the impression of an Administration in which discipline has broken down at the high levels of responsibility.  And yet, and from a distance, I rather respected Williamson. Unlike many of his predecessors, who were simply sent to the Ministry of Defence to either keep defence cuts out of the headlines, or raid the defence budget, or both, Williamson fought hard for his department in the face of the strategic illiteracy of May and the Treasury (Finance Ministry) which seem to think that Britain exists in a benign world.

Williamson’s ‘mistakes’

The ‘mistakes’ Williamson seems to have made are fourfold. First, Williamson was Chief Whip (prime ministerial enforcer in the House of Commons) prior to his appointment as Secretary of State for Defence. In that role he made few attempts to make friends in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. Second, he crossed the almighty Treasury and May’s living, breathing Cardinal Richelieu, Chancellor Philip Hammond. Third, he also crossed the mighty (over-mighty?) civil servant Sir Mark Sedwill who combines the posts of Cabinet Secretary AND National Security Adviser. Sedwill had last year conducted the National Security Capabilities Review and rightly, to my mind, had sought to boost Britain’s intelligence and cyber defences. However, the Treasury, and its ‘we only recognise as much threat as we say you can afford’ approach to Britain’s security and defences, meant any such investment would have to come from within an already hard-pressed defence budget. Williamson successfully resisted the Sedwill Plan and also secured a modest increase in Britain’s beleaguered defence budget. Fourth, Williamson was not of the Establishment and thus not one of ‘Us’.

This morning Sedwill is getting much of the blame as the ‘architect’ of Williamson’s demise. In fact, what really led to Williamson’s downfall are the deep tensions within the Cabinet and the egregious lack of leadership from Prime Minister May. These tensions actually go deeper than Brexit, even if May’s disastrous ‘stewardship’ of the Britain’s not-leaving the EU has destroyed her authority and her Administration.

Britain’s China syndrome

There are two structural factors at work in Williamson’s dismissal that reveal the extent to which the current Administration has broken down. First, Britain cannot or will not afford the ways and means to achieve its declared stated security and defence ends. This is in spite the fast-changing nature of the mounting threats Britain faces. Rather, London fixates on maintaining the fantasy of Britain spending 2% GDP on defence but getting nothing like the defence outcomes 2% properly spent on defence would generate.  Second, there is a profound split within the Cabinet, and across government, as to whether China is an opportunity for Britain or a threat to it.

 The ends, ways and means of Britain’s security and defence policy is at crisis point. To fund Britain’s existing defence equipment procurement plans alone would require an additional ￡21bn over public investment. However, the ‘fiscal discipline’ imposed by the Treasury since the 2010 and 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Reviews mean there is little chance of such money being made available to defence. The result has been the progressive cutting back of the front-line force and the hollowing out of logistics and all the vital forces and resources that are needed to maintain and sustain high-end operations during a major crisis which is seen as ever more plausible.

The Treasury’s China syndrome is equally telling. Phillip Hammond and his team see opportunity in China’s rise. Hammond is at the forefront of a business lobby in government that has also dominated May’s Brexit policy, such as it is. The Ministry of Defence and its partners in the Secret Intelligence Service, know only too well that China is a strategic competitor and that Huawei is ultimately an agent of the Chinese state.  To Phillip Hammond and the Treasury the focus is determinedly on the budget deficit and the national debt and how to reduce them. Good relations with China are key to that. Whilst to Williamson and his colleagues Britain’s future security and defence means keeping close to the Americans, especially intelligence-sharing through such groupings as Five Eyes, and China is a threat to that.

One state, two world-views

Both the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence are committed to Britain’s future security but they define ‘security’ completely differently. The result is that Britain is trying to ride two horses trying to eat each other at the same time – America and China. At the same time, Britain is seeking to feed a third horse, the European Union, even as it endeavours to dismount it.  The result is the chaos implicit in Williamson’s demise. Who is to blame? Ultimately, it is the appalling absence of leadership from Primus inter-Pares May that has created this breakdown in coherent national strategy and policy. Consequently, different departments of state have developed different world views.  It is these contending world views that ultimately did for Gavin Williamson.  Good luck with that, Penny Mordaunt.

Julian Lindley-French