The Conservative MP questioned whether Rishi Sunak was aware of the context of the complaint when Mr Raab was asked to resign
Mr Rees-Mogg added: “You can’t intimidate an ambassador, or if you can, the ambassador’s no good. Ambassadors have to have a backbone to represent the country abroad, is our ambassador a complete wet-wipe?”But Simon McDonald, who was the top civil servant at the Foreign Office for some of the time Mr Raab was Foreign Secretary, spoke out on Saturday to confirm he had raised concerns about Mr Raab’s behaviour, which the minister dismissed.
In an interview on Friday amid his resignation as Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Raab blamed a group of “activist civil servants” for accusations of bullying and claimed there was a risk “a very small minority” of officials “with a passive-aggressive culture” trying to block reforms they did not like. Lord McDonald strongly disputed Mr Raab’s claims about “activist civil servants” acting unreasonably, adding: “I saw no evidence of a small group of activists trying to undermine a minister. The issue is the minister’s behaviour.
“I disagree strongly with Mr Raab. All the civil servants I saw were working very hard. There are no civil servant activists.” He added: “Serving civil servants cannot defend themselves in public, so no serving civil servant is now going to come forward and offer an alternative account, because that is not allowed. As a retired civil servant, I can make part of the case, but I was not there.”
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