EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Brexit requires more than political will — it needs to be capable of happening
David Allen Green Author alerts
| Aug 30 11:03 | 63 comments | Share
Theresa May, UK prime minister
Theresa May, UK prime minister © Getty Images

Wanting something to happen is never enough. More than mere desire is needed. This simple truth is obvious in the current state of Brexit policy in the UK.

The discrepancy between will and capability is not new. In the days following the Brexit referendum vote, the Conservative minister Rory Stewart made the distinction: there would be no shortage of political will, he averred, but the important question was whether there would be the political capability. That is still the key question.

Since the referendum, strident expressions of political intent have been plentiful. Brexit means Brexit, and Brexit “shall” happen. Often the “shall” seems as if it is in bold and italicised block capitals. The assertion is made with confident nods and hard stares. Every few days a “senior Conservative” is quoted somewhere saying that Brexit is inevitable. If determination was sufficient for Brexit to happen, there could be no doubt of its certainty.

But declarations are shallow, however sincere. On the other side of the policy ledger —next to the ever-growing column headed “political will” — is an almost empty column headed “political capability”. For something to be marked on this side of the ledger requires something other than grand statements of political intent, regardless of font size or facial expression. Concrete things are needed instead.

The “political capability” column does have some entries. Two months after the referendum vote, the UK government has indeed made a start. It has not been a good or impressive one, and it is nothing compared to the scale of the task. But there is something.

One significant step made by Theresa May, the new prime minister, a half-baked departmental reorganisation, is already causing needless problems. It creates a “department for exiting the EU” and a “department for international trade” and looked daft and premature at the time. In hindsight, it is looking worse.

Looking from the outside, the department for exiting appears to have done little more than publish an organogram listing some 24 deputy directors and effecting a correction in the Guardian that it does not in fact hold formal meetings in a branch of Starbucks.

The department’s website contains news only of other departments. Its public email address is still that of the cabinet office. No doubt there are many constructive things happening out of view, but there is nothing whatsoever to show those looking in, anxious about what is happening and going to happen.

The department of international trade has got off to a less bad start. This is in part because it took over the impressive (if unsung) team of civil servants at the trade and investment team. But other than opening three one-person kiosks in the US, there is little to show that is directly to do with Brexit. The activity so far is nothing more than what one would expect during the summer months from a trade department of a leading world economy. And this is not a surprise, as no other nation would want to enter trade negotiations until Brexit takes shape.

What there has been, however, are turf wars. The international trade department is in dispute with the foreign office over economic foreign relations. The Brexit department is in dispute with others about obtaining appropriate staff and resources. The Treasury is reported to be opposed to the pro-Brexit ministers in respect of UK’s participation in the European single market. One suspects the greater part of the energy so far expended in Whitehall over leaving the EU has been in respect of administrative in-fighting.

All this was foreseeable. The fundamental problem with the prime minister’s immediate departmental reorganisation was that it was implementing part of a Brexit plan before the government had decided what it was going to do.

A pop-up department headed by David Davis may have been just the solution that the country needed; but other approaches, such as the foreign office or Treasury (or both) leading on Brexit, should also have been examined. The problem with small government departments in Whitehall is that they are routinely swatted by the ever-so-nice elephants from the more established departments.

Mrs May does not accept the problem is with her misconceived departmental reorganisation. She is reported as being “unimpressed” by this turf war, as if it were somehow not the inevitable consequence of her own flawed decision.

Now she is reported to be telling civil servants “to get on with the job” of “delivering Brexit”. But this demand suffers from a similar flaw to the reorganisation. There is no plan for the civil service to deliver. There is no “job” for officials to be “getting on with”. One Conservative politician is even calling for civil servants to be sacked for frustrating Brexit, even though there is no plan yet to be opposed.

The shape of Brexit is still to be determined. The only issue that was resolved by the referendum was about membership of the EU, not what comes next. The simple question was whether the UK should remain a member of the union. It was about membership in principle.

This noise about the cabinet and the civil service evidences not that there is cabinet “opposition” to Brexit or that wily officials are being deftly obstructive. It is the sound Whitehall makes when there is no policy to begin with: we are hearing expressions of political pain.

This week the prime minister has called a special cabinet meeting. Reports say she is expecting ministers to come to her with plans for Brexit. She wants solutions, not problems. But the lack of policy direction is not the fault of cabinet ministers. The wooliness is coming from the top.

Ministers and their departments disagree on Brexit. Of course they do. The Treasury wants continued participation in the single market. This is not odd. Other departments want other things. That is not odd either. Some ministers want a “hard Brexit” and others are still unconvinced by any Brexit. All this is to be expected.

Mrs May seems to have reserved overall Brexit policy to herself and her office, but has done nothing so far that indicates leadership on the matter. Instead, there is a policy emptiness, ministerial bickering and departmental rows.

The challenges facing a Brexit government are legion. Should the UK be part of the single market? What about freedom of movement? What about Scotland’s opposition? What about the concerns from Northern Ireland about the impact on the Good Friday Agreement? What about the Irish border? What about the dozens of areas of policy that depend on ongoing membership of the EU? Will there be any trade agreements in place for the UK to enter into?

The Brexit government has to address each of these and many other serious questions on top of its routine and mundane work, in a period of austerity and budget cuts, and with a civil service one-fifth smaller than in 2010.

None of this is to say Brexit will not happen. Many things are possible in human affairs. But it will not come about because of declarations that it “shall” happen. Brexit also needs to be capable of happening, and that requires a policy as well as resources. Instead of just asserting that Brexit “shall” happen, the government now needs to explain “how” it will happen. It seems not to have any idea.

David Allen Green, a lawyer and journalist, writes the FT’s law and policy blog. David has just been commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a book on Brexit.