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The heads of the UK civil service and MI6 have both quit the Garrick Club after they were revealed as members of the London gentleman’s club that does not allow women to join.
Simon Case, who as cabinet secretary is responsible for half a million civil servants, and spy chief Richard Moore on Wednesday separately said they resigned from the club after facing criticism for their membership.
The Guardian this week revealed that the Garrick, founded in 1831, counted among its members the King, dozens of peers, a Supreme Court judge, and 10 MPs including deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden.
The Garrick, located in Covent Garden, says on its website that it has about 1,300 members including “many of the most distinguished actors and men of letters in England”.
Literary figures including Charles Dickens, AA Milne and Kingsley Amis have been members, as well as numerous artists, politicians and businessmen.
Over the years efforts to change the membership rules to allow women to join, including petitions and legal challenges, have all failed.
Case this week said he had joined the Garrick to overturn its male-only policy.
Liam Byrne, Labour head of the business select committee, had asked the Whitehall chief on Tuesday how he could “foster a genuine culture of inclusiveness” while remaining a member of the West End club.
Case replied: “If you believe profoundly in reform of an institution, by and large it’s easier to do if you join it to make the change from within rather than chuck rocks from the outside.”
Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government think-tank, said Case’s membership sent a “terrible message” to civil servants who were trying to promote equality in Whitehall.
Jill Rutter, a former senior civil servant, said: “Simon Case casts himself as a Garrick fifth columnist leading an army of militant public servants who have just joined to change the rules to admit women. I am wondering how impressed his female colleagues are by this noble sacrifice.”
A spokesperson for Case on Wednesday said: “I can formally confirm that the cabinet secretary has resigned his membership of the Garrick Club.”
Moore, head of MI6 — the Secret Intelligence Service — had initially insisted in an email to staff on Tuesday that he would stay a Garrick member to campaign for the right for women to join.
But barely 24 hours later he U-turned in a fresh email in which he said he was quitting after having reflected on the matter.
MI6 has in recent years sought to recruit a wider array of candidates to “reflect the society we serve” rather than the stereotype of white, male graduates from Oxford and Cambridge university.
Sir Robert Chote, a prominent economist who chairs the UK Statistics Authority, also resigned from the club on Tuesday morning.
Friends of Chote, a former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said he was keen for the bar on women’s membership to be lifted “sooner rather than later” but that he did not want the issue to cause any controversy for UKSA.
This post was originally published on Financial Times
