Gibraltar has cost the job of former British Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Dominic Raab, who has been furious with the current UK ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliot, for having probed the possibility of Spanish police being stationed in the Peñón permanently as a formula for the border to remain open after Brexit.
The incident, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper, occurred in November 2020 as a result of Great Britain leaving the EU, and the need to keep a border crossing open through which thousands of people go to work every day. on one side and the other of the fence. Raab received tips or rumors that the ambassador in Madrid had raised (or considered at the request of his interlocutors in the ad hoc negotiations) the permanent presence of Spanish police in Gibraltar, which was contrary to the official policy of the Foreign Office. He flew into a rage and made – always according to the Telegraph version – Elliot travel to London to reprimand him and ask him for explanations. Such a concession could have validated, in his opinion, the Spanish claim to sovereignty.
The conversation must have been very heated, although its exact terms have not been disclosed. Elliot – who according to the Telegraph was vague in his answers – has continued as ambassador to Spain, but Raab, then head of the Foreign Office, behaved extraordinarily harsh and punitive towards him, both in substance and in form, and withdrew from the Gibraltar negotiations. In the end, a formula was found to keep the border open that did not imply the permanent presence of Spanish police.
The treatment of Hugh Elliot is one of two instances – out of a total of around twenty accusations – that the investigation into the conduct of the former Justice Minister concluded constituted bullying. Numerous civil servants and subordinates have accused him of demeaning behavior that has caused them stress, anxiety and mental health problems, or forced them to take leave. The final report censures Raab for being unnecessarily aggressive, humiliating and intimidating, to the point of constituting an abuse of power, which went far beyond what is necessary for a ministry to function. But he defiantly responded that “people have too thin skin” and “there are those who boycott government decisions to impose their own agenda, when no one has elected them.”
Raab maintains that he did not intend to harm anyone. The report gives him, to some extent and with irony, the reason. His offenses were not directed at anyone in particular, but at everyone. They were not the exception but the norm, and he was a very unpleasant person to be a boss. Even Boris Johnson, who had a very lax ethical code, he read him the primer, but he decided to keep him in office.
