Rishi Sunak was unaware of Michael Gove’s attendance at a private meeting of prominent former leave and remain campaigners to discuss Brexit, No 10 has said. Sunak’s spokesperson suggested the prime minister had first become aware of Gove’s attendance at the two-day summit when he read about it in the Observer. No 10 stopped short of criticising Gove for attending, though it would not say Sunak was happy with the attendance. “Private individuals are able to come in and discuss whatever they wish. From the government’s position, we are focusing on further maximising the benefits from Brexit,” the spokesperson said. Government sources said there was some irritation that there was no warning about Gove’s attendance, because of the delicate party management involved during talks on the Northern Irish protocol. One said there were “eyebrows raised” in No 10, but said it was unlikely Sunak would raise it personally with the cabinet minister. The conference was attended by senior members of Keir Starmer’s frontbench, including the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, as well as the former chief Brexit negotiator Oliver Robbins. David Frost, another former chief Brexit negotiator, has criticised the event, which had the title “How can we make Brexit work better with our neighbours in Europe?”, and he urged ministers to “fully and enthusiastically embrace the advantages of Brexit”. The two-day summit, revealed by the Observer on Sunday, was also attended by the Tory grandees Michael Howard and Norman Lamont; the shadow defence secretary, John Healey; the former Treasury permanent secretary Tom Scholar; the pro-leave crossbench peer Gisela Stuart, and business leaders and diplomats. It was held at the historic Ditchley Park retreat in Oxfordshire.
On Monday, Lord Frost referred to it as “a further piece of evidence that many in our political and business establishment want to unravel the deals we did to exit the EU in 2020 and to stay shadowing the EU instead”. Attempting to explain the presence of prominent Brexit backers at the meeting alongside former remain supporters, he told the Daily Mail: “That’s why so many of those responsible for Theresa May’s failed backstop deal were there, while I and those who actually delivered the Brexit agreements were not.” No 10 said Gove had made it clear he had attended in his capacity as a governor of Ditchley. One attender said Gove was honest about some of the shortcomings of Brexit, but they said it was wrong to suggest he had expressed regret. They said Gove argued the case for how Brexit would work in the long term, including in growth industries such as gene editing. No 10 said Sunak was “focused on making sure we deliver on the benefits of [Brexit]. Whether that’s taking control of the migration system, freeports, creating jobs and investment, and obviously we’re going through reviewing EU laws now to see what more can be done. We’ve seen some of those quite recently with some of the environmental reforms we’ve brought in, for example. There is much more to do and that’s what the review of EU law is about.” Asked if Gove should have been speaking on the issue outside his brief, the spokesperson said: “The public will judge departments and the secretary of state on the work they are delivering. I think you’ve seen from the department in recent days, whether it’s on housing, for important issues like Grenfell, or levelling up, the secretary of state is working hard.” The Observer revealed that a confidential introductory statement acknowledged that there was now a view among “some at least, that so far the UK has not yet found its way forward outside the EU”, with Brexit “acting as a drag on our growth and inhibiting the UK’s potential”. A source who was there told the paper it was a “constructive meeting” that addressed the problems and opportunities of Brexit but dwelt heavily on the economic downside to the UK economy at a time of global instability and rising energy prices. But Frost said: “Brexit doesn’t need ‘fixing’. It needs this Conservative government, elected with a huge mandate on a Brexit programme, to fully and enthusiastically embrace its advantages instead of leaving the field to those who never wanted it in the first place. “I and millions of others want the government to get on with that instead of raising taxes, deterring investment and pushing public spending to its highest level for 70 years.” One senior Conservative party source who attended the summit dismissed Frost’s portrayal of the conference as a “secret plot” to “unravel” Brexit as “rather pathetic”. “It is an overreach and a misunderstanding of what the conference was about, which was about the future of UK and EU relations, which is a perfectly sensible subject to discuss,” the attender said. Frost’s comments come after the UK and EU reiterated their commitment to finding “joint solutions” to differences around the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol. There is mounting speculation that a deal is finally on the cards to reduce red tape on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. • This article was amended on 13 February 2023. An earlier version called Gisela Stuart a Labour peer. She is a crossbench peer.