It was a secret Brexit summit with a lot of striking names attending – the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, the former EU negotiator Oliver Robbins, the ex-Treasury permanent secretary Tom Scholar. But the name that has raised the most eyebrows is the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove.
The gathering revealed by the Observer has riled pro-Brexit Conservatives, including the former negotiator Lord Frost. Attenders have attempted to play down its significance, suggesting it was more of a “grandees’ talking shop” – albeit one with an extraordinary guest list.
It was not, they say, a secret plot to influence the current government, though it might be the start of a blueprint for the next one. “How can we make Brexit work better?” is exactly the question Keir Starmer wants his shadow ministers to grapple with.
But why does Gove want to grapple with it now?
There are likely to be two motivations – the first is defending his past approach, and the second is an eye on how he might spend his post-political life.
Though he was a major player in Vote Leave alongside Boris Johnson, Gove has always taken a pragmatic approach to how Brexit might work, rather than insist people simply aren’t being enthusiastic enough.
He stayed in Theresa May’s government to help guide through her Brexit deal, despite the resignations of Johnson, David Davis and Dominic Raab, as well as his own adviser, James Starkie, who had also urged his boss to quit.
It was Gove at the Cabinet Office who tried initially to find solutions to the Northern Ireland protocol issues – but he has also showed a willingness to be hardline in some cases and was prepared to defend deeply controversial legislation that broke international law with the Internal Market Act.
His allies say he has always been up for a debating challenge – and to grapple with the biggest political issues of the day and take on Brexit’s critics. But they also stress that he had very little involvement or influence over the government’s position in his current role.
Though he has public plans to fight the next election, the now veteran cabinet minister has a legacy to build. Gove suggested over the summer when Liz Truss was on course for No 10 that he believed his days in the highest office of government were over.
Thoughts were turning to how he might spend the rest of his career – perhaps as a Conservative statesman writing influential columns in the way William Hague has moulded his post-government life. There were even widespread rumours he was in the running to edit the Times.
That is all now on the back burner because of his return to government under Rishi Sunak – though he fits in easily with the stable of grandees invited to the meeting at Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire and it is easy to imagine him in that mould post-2024.
But those close to Gove say he does have more to do in government and it is at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities that he believes he can secure a lasting legacy. It is housing reform that is the mission that really still exercises Gove – rather than handing out the pots of levelling up money.
Gove is said to still believe the Conservatives have a chance at the next election and has stressed to colleagues that delivering on housing and levelling up will be two key deciders – in “red wall” seats that voted Tory for the first time and in winning over voters under 50, for whom housing is a major issue.
He is stymied hugely by the nimbys in his own party, to whom the government caved over housing targets – but his current focus is the quality of housing stock, including building safety and the state of social housing.
Last week, he was offered the opportunity in the mini-reshuffle to move to the helm of the new science department, but opted to stay at the DLUHC. If Gove’s optimism is misplaced, and he has just two years left in government, perhaps it is easier to secure a personal legacy with bricks and mortar than gene editing or AI.
