Theresa May's new EU adviser once defended the Soviet Union and lamented rise of capitalism

Theresa May's new EU adviser once defended the Soviet Union and suggested its fall meant there was “no alternative to the mad excesses of modern capitalism”,  according to reports. 

Oliver Robbins, the top official at the Department for Exiting the European Union and David Davis’ former right hand man during talks in Brussels, was hired by the Prime Minister this week. 

As as a student in the 1990s at Hertford College, Oxford, Mr Robbins wrote in the Oxford Reform Club magazine: “The Russian state has endured more than any other major nation in the twentieth century, and has achieved more to."

In the article obtained by Guido Fawkes, he said: "I would never disagree that some of the deeds done in the name of communism were evil, but it is as well to look at the era’s aims and achievements.

"First among these were the aims of free and fair education, housing and healthcare. These were also the main planks of the post-war consensus here in Britain, and could hardly be described as evil.

"What is more, they were achieved. More Russians can read than Britons, there are almost no homeless people in Moscow, unlike London…

"Another achievement was the making of a state, a world power indeed, and one that its people could be proud of. The Soviet leaders changed Russia from a backward peasant autocracy, despised by the West, into a technological giant at whom the world cowered in fear for half a century.”

Describing the decline of the Soviet Union, he wrote: “The demise of the Soviet experiment means that for those growing up in the world today, especially western Europe, there appears to be no alternative to the mad excesses of modern capitalism.

"To the thinking man and woman, Soviet Russia may not have been ideal, but it was food for thought in the 'greed is good' climate of the 1980’s.”

Mr Robbins will report directly to Downing Street but will keep leading the UK’s team of officials during talks with the bloc. He officially takes up the position on October 1st. 

The Department for Exiting the European Union declined to comment.