British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will back his top civil servant in a bid to become NATO secretary-general, the Washington Examiner can reveal.
Mark Sedwill announced his resignation from the dual jobs of Cabinet secretary and national security adviser on Sunday amid reports of tensions between him and Johnson’s political team.
The 55-year-old is widely admired in the British Foreign Office for a diplomatic career that saw him appointed ambassador to Kabul in 2009, where he also served as NATO’s senior civilian representative in Afghanistan before returning to the United Kingdom.
He remains in his current posts but will be out of both in September.
A British source familiar with No. 10 Downing Street’s thinking said Johnson had agreed to support his name for the top job at NATO after Sedwill lost a bitter power struggle with Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s top adviser.
A second figure said, “Being Cabinet secretary at a time when British politics was polarized by Brexit, and when the relationship with the civil service was so strained, would have been tough for anyone.
“But with serious national security credentials and a grip on top-level international politics, he’ll be brilliant at NATO. Building alliances across international partners around a common objective is what he does best.”
The post is currently occupied by Jens Stoltenberg, whose second four-year stint is due to conclude in 2022.
In a statement, the British government did not deny the report. “Jens Stoltenberg is doing an excellent job as NATO secretary-general and we look forward to working with him for the rest of his term in office,” a spokeswoman said in response to a request for comment. “We will work with other NATO allies to select his successor when the time comes.”
Slotting Sedwill into the job would be a neat solution for the prime minister, who would still need to convince allies, including the United States, that the career diplomat is the best person for the job.
Last year, he was among the front-runners for the post of ambassador to Washington but indicated he wanted to stay in London to oversee a radical overhaul of the civil service.
However, opposition members of Parliament said he was forced out by Cummings as part of his project to politicize the civil service.
Sedwill was appointed national security adviser by Theresa May in 2017 and then was made Cabinet secretary, the most powerful civil service post in the country, a year later.
In his resignation letter to Johnson, he wrote: “As we have discussed over the past few months, while the combined model was right for the circumstances of my tenure, as you lead the country through this next phase, you will need a separate national security adviser to support you on this global agenda, permitting the Cabinet secretary to focus on the domestic agenda. They should see you through the rest of this Parliament.”
The prime minister thanked him for his “outstanding service” in a handwritten note.
“As PM I have particularly appreciated your calm and shrewd advice, as well as the many useful and amazing notes you have scribbled to me in cabinet,” Johnson wrote.
“You have also spoken with a unique authority – unusual in a Cabinet secretary – on international affairs and national security, and as national security adviser you have done much to keep this country safe.”
