Ivan Rogers has revealed what we suspected—the government has no clue about Brexit, says Tom Brake
by Tom Brake / January 4, 2017 / Leave a comment
Rogers, who resigned on Tuesday ©Thierry Roge European Union handout/EPA
This is the most important juncture in the recent history of our country. A moment when clarity and vision are needed more than ever. And yet yesterday, Ivan Rogers resigned his position as Britain’s ambassador to the European Union. In his resignation letter, he implied that the Conservative government is bogged down in “ill-founded arguments” and “muddled thinking” and called on his former colleagues to “speak truth to power.” It is being reported that Tim Barrow, political director at the Foreign Office, will replace him.
My reaction to the resignation, like that of many of my fellow MPs, was “wow.” Not because it told us anything we didn’t already suspect, but because the former ambassador has been a witness to the government’s so-called Brexit “strategy” from the start. I put “strategy” in quote marks because Rogers, up until now our man in Brussels, says Britain doesn’t have one: no negotiating position, no means of achieving it, no plan—and seemingly no clue.
Yet rather than taking this as a wake-up call, the response of Theresa May’s control-obsessed government was to brief against someone widely regarded as among our most able—and neutral—diplomats. It should hardly be controversial to say that we need our top people around the table to prevent Brexit from wrecking the country. Instead vital, talented people like Rogers are being driven away.
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