The modern concept of the deep state (or at least, the phrase) emerged in Turkey, where it supposedly described the shadowy networks operating behind the scenes to uphold Atatürk’s secular vision.
In a country where the military made a habit of overthrowing governments on just that basis, it certainly seemed plausible enough. Yet when the Erdoğan government purported to be uprooting this menace, the resulting Ergenekon trials were a farce; in 2016, every conviction was annulled.
This is useful context for assessing the likelihood that there is, as more than a third of respondents to our most recent survey believe, “a plot within the Civil Service to destabilise the Government”.
Yet there doesn’t need to be a full-blown conspiracy to be a problem – and that the Government has a Civil Service problem is now beyond dispute. In the wake of the PSC’s threatened strike over the Rwanda policy, only the most centrist of dads could deny the view, held by 38 per cent of our panel, that “there is resistance to ministers and their programme”.
Take these two results together, and almost three-quarters of party members think the Civil Service needs reform.
In theory, Rishi Sunak could take them up on that. After all, the Conservatives were returned in 2019 on Boris Johnson’s platform, in which Dominic Cummings’ preoccupations with the structure of the state featured prominently.
But empora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis, as Sir Humphrey sagely advised his minister. 2019 is a political life-age ago. Times have changed; so, more than once, has the Government. Institutional tinkering excites few voters.
Even if the Prime Minister were minded to grasp this nettle, with less than two years to go until the general election there is no time. Nor is there a plan. Nor, if we’re honest, a clear grasp of the problem.
Yet it would be irresponsible to do nothing. As I wrote previously regarding the BBC, when trust in a public institution starts to split on partisan lines the legitimacy and the future of that institution is threatened – whether you believe the doubters have a legitimate complaint or not.
So, what could Sunak and his team do? A first step would be a more honest accounting of what the problem is.
In the majority of cases, we do not need to reach for the tin-foil hats to explain why the Government has run into most difficulty with officials in those areas – Brexit, immigration, justice – where it is most obviously pursuing a distinctly right-wing agenda.
The permanence of the Civil Service bestows many advantages, which are handily limned in this briefing from the Institute for Government. But it also has costs, one of which is the danger of calcifying outlooks.
In areas where there has been longstanding continuity of government policy, such as our relationship with Europe, officials have their whole careers to imbibe that worldview and its underlying logic. A dramatic change of course will be a shock to the system; some (perhaps many) will struggle to adjust to it, even if they take their commitment to impartiality seriously.
The relentless growth of the state also poses challenges. The more extensive a department’s responsibilities, the greater the part of them that will end up running on auto-pilot, and the less able will be ministers or spads to get to grips with most of the issues which do cross their radar.
That doesn’t make such change impossible. Tony Blair managed it, and even his fiercest critics can’t blame the post-1997 New Labour blob for his initial success.
But it does require the consistent application of a clear plan by a motivated team, and with the exception of Michael Gove at Education that has seldom been in evidence on the big issues the Party has tried to tackle over the past few years.
Our departure from the EU was precipitated by a prime minister who neither believed in it nor prepared for it, and the process of leaving witnessed two changes of government, let alone of policy; we had to wait for Liz Truss for the Retained EU Law Bill, Boris Johnson’s hyperactive legislative agenda having apparently no room for it.
Successive prime ministers have talked tough on immigration, and appointed tough-talking home secretaries – but continually liberalised the system in practice, unwilling to confront the difficulties a real strategy to reduce our reliance on it would involve. The fortunes of the Bill of Rights Bill waxed and waned entirely on the basis of whether or not Dominic Raab was in office, and in any event it didn’t really do anything.
All of which is a run up to suggesting that our panel may be under-pricing “the Government is not effective” as part (part!) of the problem.
Yet that emphatically does not mean that there isn’t a problem on the Civil Service side. It may only be a small minority of staff leaking against ministers, but it is a persistent issue – some of the most lurid allegations against Raab printed in the papers, for example, never featured in the actual complaints.
Then there’s the Home Office.
As Lord Wolfson has set out, the PSC’s proposed strike over the Rwanda scheme is politically-motivated and entirely unacceptable. A policy is only “illegal” in this country if it contravenes domestic law; those unwilling to carry forward the lawful policy of the Government should resign.
Such brazen tactics also make it much more plausible that there is further, serious institutional resistance at the department, which ministers would be entirely within their rights to tackle.
Yet if anything, the wider conspiracising gives such bad actors political cover – any crackdown is much easier to paint as a generalised war on the Civil Service. It will also impede relations between ministers and the senior mandarins whose cooperation would be essential in effectively tackling the problem.
We are in danger of producing a diagnosis without a prescription. So let’s return to the exam question: what (given the above outline of the challenges) could the Prime Minister do between now and the election?
First, if he won’t scrap the Ministerial Code (and he won’t) Sunak should at least refine it into a realistically-enforceable set of serious misdemeanours. This will make ministers less vulnerable to having trivial allegations and wrongdoings dressed up by opportunistic opponents and lazy journalists as a career-threatening “breach of the code”.
(He might also look at enforcing the Civil Service Code – “You must serve the government, whatever its political persuasion… no matter what your own political beliefs are” – on those PSC strikers. Turnabout is fair play.)
Second, stop constantly reshuffling ministers and re-organising departments; give at least those ministers for whom you have an important mission the chance to actually get to grips with the brief.
Third, and relatedly: have some missions (and try to ensure both that they’re actually fleshed out with good policy and that they tally with what you’re telling the voters – and Tory members – your missions are).
Fourth, bite the bullet and allow larger teams of special advisers, focusing on policy expertise or the experience needed to really get to grip with the system or a part of it.
Fifth, and finally: go big on the Home Office. From policing to Rwanda to Windrush, it is a sprawling department of many failures and few friends – whose staff happen to be threatening mutiny against one of the Government’s flagship policies.
There isn’t time between now and polling day to comprehensively reform it. But there’s time enough to draw up a plan you could fight an election on.