The Guardian has reported that:
Theresa May is struggling to summon enough political courage to admit there will be difficulties in Britain's exit from the European Union, according to the head of the senior civil servants' union.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, said the prime minister's inability to talk openly about the complexity of Brexit could lead to a breaking point in Whitehall as staff struggle with an immense workload on limited resources.
They added:
“It is pure politics that is defining the Brexit debate and forcing May to say this is not a big, difficult job, and it is all in hand. Ministers lack the political courage to admit how complex and time-consuming this will be.
“When anyone pops their head above the parapet — former permanent secretaries, ex-cabinet secretaries, the Institute for Government — and says this is going to take a long time and its complex, they are immediately shot down and accused of betraying the will of the people.
“The politics around Brexit are the biggest risk to Brexit. The government is clearly in a situation where they are trying to deny the complexity of it,” he said.
I am entirely convinced of this. The government is in total denial of the scale of the political issues it faces.
The first of those issues is its own forthcoming political crisis when people realise that any viable Brexit deal will mean that many of the things they thought they were voting to change, like immigration, will continue to happen.
The second of those crises is on economic policy: Brexit is going to impose massive direct and indirect cost on government that will challenge Tory budget sensibilities to their core. There appears no appreciation of this, let alone a plan to deal with it.
And the third is the threat of appearing incompetent. The chance that there will be a Brexit solution in two years is remote. When that becomes apparent the government will look hopelessly out of control, largely because it will be.
The Brexality of the next few years is that they will be chaotic. I applaud Dave Penman for saying so. I hope people are taking note. I am quite sure that was not the will of the people. Nothing will persuade me that they voted for chaos for no gain but that is what they are likely to get.
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Maybe their failure to execute an effective Brexit will lead to electoral defeat. Something to hope for. Of course, they will keep moving the goal posts and blaming any negative outcomes on the EU and/or world events. However, you can only keep kicking the can down the road for so long. Eventually you run out of road.
The most staggering aspect of this monumental débâcle is that Farage – ex City trader and the campaign’s principal propounder for the past 20 years – didn’t find time to construct any normal ‘business plan’ for his single-issue projct, irrespctive of its eventual feasibility. Zilch. And the supportive Tory MPs during this period clearly failed to ask him for a copy. It just beggars belief, doesn’t it?
You assume that Farage had some appreciation of the complexity of leaving the EU, which would presumably have required him to understand the many indirect and direct ways that UK benefitted from the EU. As he clearly didn’t want / couldn’t be bothered to have any in depth understanding he presumably saw no need of a plan- all the Uk had to do was leave- an approach that many of his followers keep demanding. Life is so much easier if you don’t worry about complexities or ever listen to experts that challenge your own perspective. An approach that May seems to also be trying to adopt.
You’re talking about Farage and Brexiteers including May having an alternative economically viable trading arrangements model or plan to the one the UK currently has with the EU. Well you’re going to have to whistle for a very long time before you get one. Six months have gone by since the Referendum vote and the Brexiteers didn’t have one then and as the New Year rapidly approaches they still don’t have one. The UK now pretty much amounts to a nation run by loud-mouthed ignorant children!
Agree with everything that Penman says. Except that presumably article 50 will be triggered in the first half of 2017 and then presumably the govt will have to start dealing with some of the harsh realities.
What you think was the will of the people is not the issue.
People voted to get out. Tis done.
Now – and the material you have presented here underline this – the only way is a unity govt, where those who are in it have to come up with positive proposals – or get out.
You clearly didn’t understand that the referendum was advisory
And that by its nature democracy allows for a change of mind
It’s a wee bit simplistic to say that “people voted to get out” – people voted for all sorts of different things at the conclusion of campaign of lies, misinformation and propaganda. The referendum constitutes nothing more than a snapshot of public mood under very peculiar circumstances; a mature democracy wouldn’t take it as a basis for discussion and consensus-building, not as a an irrevocable instruction.
*would* not *wouldn’t*