Making sense of Brexit firebrand Steve Baker’s uncharacteristic apology

Ask Prof Tim Bale for his take on the new Northern Ireland Office minister, and arch Brexit campaigner, Steve Baker and he tells you a story about a foreign correspondent’s first meeting with him.

“The journalist came out after the chat, turned to his colleague and said: ‘I have never, ever met a politician like that. This guy has the fire of religion in his eyes. He’s a zealot,’” recalls the London academic.

Baptised by full immersion at Porthpean beach in his native Cornwall as a teenager, Baker is driven by an evangelical faith, but his political beliefs are equally strongly held: “Both are very fervent,” according to a Conservative Party colleague.

‘He can be very, very friendly, but at the same time he has this unbelievable high level of intelligence in his own field, which makes him slightly geekish’

“You know he’s an aircraft engineer by design? I think that probably sums him up. He can be very, very friendly, but at the same time he has this unbelievable high level of intelligence in his own field, which makes him slightly geekish.

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“He thinks other people understand what he’s talking about and at times you find yourself thinking, ‘Steve, what are you on about?’ I have a curious amount of time for him because of that,” his Conservative colleague went on.

Political opponents, however, contrast the High Wycombe MP’s warmth and chattiness in parliamentary corridors with his reputation as the hardman of Brexit.

In 2016, Baker accused David Cameron of attempting to “polish poo” as he presented his renegotiated relationship with Brussels (two years later he told The House magazine that while “vulgar”, it was the “most effective thing he has ever done in politics”.)

“He can be erratic, a bit of a pinball in terms of his mood around things, he can be disagreeable, but he’s always quite friendly,” says a retired MP from rival benches.

“He is someone who will occasionally concede things, but not much.”

Saturation coverage

Baker’s apology last Sunday to the Irish Government and EU over his strident stance during Brexit negotiations received saturation coverage.

Delivered at a Conservative Party conference fringe event, the admission by the former chairman of the European Research Group (ERG) that he and some colleagues had not shown respect to the “legitimate interests” of Ireland and Brussels was met with astonishment.

The comments were acknowledged by Taoiseach Michael Martin as “honest” and “very helpful”, but some Irish Government officials privately expressed scepticism, saying that “action, not olive branches, is needed”.

[ Is Steve Baker’s Damascene conversion on Anglo-Irish relations for real? ]

Meanwhile, a senior Whitehall source told The Irish Times there was “bewilderment” at Baker’s apparent Damascene conversion a month after his appointment as British minister of state for Northern Ireland.

“It seems like a complete contradiction of character from what I know of him, I don’t buy it,” he says.

‘My initial reaction was, has Steve Baker been replaced with a stunt double? I found it hugely implausible and most unlikely’

As talks resumed this week to break the deadlock between the UK and the EU over the protocol, what has brought the arch Brexiteer to the position of apologising for his behaviour over the past six years?

“My initial reaction was, has Steve Baker been replaced with a stunt double?” says Jon Tonge, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool. “I found it hugely implausible and most unlikely, because he was the zealot in terms of his role in the ERG.

“But I think ultimately, the realities of ministerial office, particular a sensitive one in terms of Northern Ireland, tend to concentrate the mind. It’s easy to mouth off as a backbencher, the world is always simpler as a Conservative backbencher. When you hold ministerial office, especially when it’s Northern Ireland, the world takes on a rather different shape.

‘Fragile vase’

“Carrying the fragile vase across the floor, there is a recognition now that a deal does need to be done with the EU to save the Good Friday Agreement. Even the ERG is not opposed to the Good Friday Agreement.

“I don’t think there’s been a fundamental rethink of the British government strategy but I do think there’s been a recognition by the Steve Bakers of this world that the Irish Government is to some extent on their side. The Irish Government wants a deal as well.

“Last month I was at the British-Irish Association conference in Oxford. They had Micheál Martin there, Simon Coveney there, lower-grade representatives from the British government, it has to be acknowledged, but the mood music was quite positive in terms of, ‘we can do a deal here’.”

Baker declined to be interviewed by The Irish Times, replying by text that he was “not keen to further stoke the story”.

Speaking to RTÉ on Monday, he admitted that unionists and loyalists had “not reacted well” to his apology.

“But I would just say to them: if we’re going to be constructive here... we’ve got to de-escalate these tensions.

“If I have to eat a bit of humble pie to get that done, then I’m happy to eat it.”

In the week before Sunday’s conference event, he held private meetings with some Northern politicians and business leaders in which he communicated “similar messages of contrition”, according to one source.

‘Complex character’

UK prime minister Liz Truss immediately distanced herself from his remarks by saying they were not representative of her government, while Conservative peer Jonathan Caine – who flanked Baker on the Birmingham stage alongside Northern secretary Chris Heaton-Harris – insisted there was “emphatically not a change of policy” on the protocol front.

Tim Bale believes the apology was a personal one delivered by a “very complex character”.

“I’m totally prepared to believe he’s reflected on his behaviour and found it unworthy and even unchristian. He has therefore decided to repent in public,” says the Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London. and author of The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron.

“But it was also qualified – it’s not complete and utter repentance. He did it, though, and it shows a degree of willing.

“I’ve studied the Tory Party and him very intensively so I’m very aware of his movements and his views over the years.

“I think he does get these bees in his bonnet and becomes obsessed with particular subjects. It wasn’t just Brexit for him. Once Brexit was ‘done’, he then switched over to the Covid Recovery Group [a grouping of Tory MPs] protesting against restrictions and took the anti-lockdown position.

“He also founded the anti-green Net Zero Scrutiny Group [a small band of Tory MPs pushing for climate change targets to be challenged].

“So in some ways I think he is a worry or has been a worry to Conservative leaders, because everything he’s touched has turned to gold or sh*t really as far as they’re concerned – probably the latter.

“He has been a real thorn in their side. He also comes from quite an ordinary background. In the Conservative Party that’s not always easy. He’s outside that charmed circle that Simon Cooper talks about in his book about the Conservative leadership.”

Skydiving fanatic

Born in Cornwall in 1971, Baker’s father was a carpenter and his mother an accounting clerk.

After studying aeronautical engineering at Southampton University, he served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 1999, after which he took an MSc in computation at St Cross College, Oxford. He went on to work as a software engineer and consultant before entering politics in 2009.

Fanatical about skydiving (in an interview with High Profiles, he speaks of his “joy in doing high-risk things that require skill and responsibility. My hobbies are all about risk management”) and motorcycling, his other enthusiasm is Austrian economics.

Having voted for the Liberal Democrats at his first election, he told The House magazine that he “only joined the Conservative party because I was furious about the Lisbon treaty”.

Five years after his election as MP in 2010, he co-founded the Eurosceptic political pressure group Conservatives for Britain.

Former Stormont deputy first minister Mark Durkan was involved in Brexit negotiations as a Foyle MP and remembers Baker “rolling his eyes to heaven” when concerns were raised about the impact of an EU exit on the North.

“In his ERG role, his was pretty absolutist stuff. He was quite dismissive of the arguments that there were any implication for the Good Friday Agreement or that complications could arise in terms of British-Irish relationships or, indeed, the balance of the institutions here,” the former SDLP leader says.

“In fairness to him, he could argue and claim that in some of that he was listening to people like David Trimble, who was trying to say that Brexit and Europe and trade had nothing to do with the agreement.

“The ERG decided they liked those type of arguments – these were erected on stilts as though this was from the oracle of the Good Friday Agreement.”

‘Very modern’

Durkan feels the apology was a “very modern” one.

“Remember, he’s not saying he was wrong in some of what he did. He’s just saying he was wrong to communicate a sense we didn’t trust or whatever. He hasn’t said knowing what he knows now he would vote differently on the three [Theresa] May withdrawal deal votes or anything like that.

“It’s an apology for his past tone rather than for his actions in the ERG. It is an apology about how people might have interpreted his position, as so many modern apologies are – you know, so, ‘if I was communicating I didn’t trust you, I apologise’.”

‘On several occasions when there’s been leadership contests, he started talking about the possibility of standing, which to anybody who knows the politics of the Conservative Party seems utterly deluded’

In July, Baker announced he was considering running for prime minister and told The Guardian that if he won he would dismantle many of Boris Johnson’s green policies.

“I’ve got sufficient people imploring me to stand, so I’ve got to think about it seriously myself,” he said at the time.

For Prof Bale, there’s the “occasional touch of messiah and messianic about him”.

“On several occasions when there’s been leadership contests, he started talking about the possibility of standing, which to anybody who knows the politics of the Conservative Party seems utterly deluded. But I don’t think he’s joking.

“In some senses, Baker is one of those people who feels the hand of history upon them – even if no one else notices it.”