- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
THE UK government is currently not ready for the next stage of Brexit talks, Theresa May’s former special adviser on exiting the EU has said.
Raoul Ruparel, in a report for the Institute for Government released on Saturday (14), said that as it stands, “the UK does not yet appear ‘match-fit’ for the next phase of negotiations.”
“There is a huge amount of work to be done to flesh out the detail of what the UK wants from its future relationship with the EU, and Whitehall is not yet ready to negotiate such a complex and wide-ranging agreement, nor implement it,” said Ruparel, who helped design the North Ireland solution that helped prime minister Boris Johnson secure a Brexit deal with the EU.
According to Ruparel, the best Johnson can secure in the 11-month transition period is a narrow and shallow free trade deal with the EU. He also believes that much of the work that was done under the Theresa May government will now be irrelevant.
He said: “There has been a lot of work done within various government departments, but much of this was done under Theresa May’s government and often without any central coordination or direction.
“This means much of it may not, in the end, have any bearing on reality, or may actually conflict with the work other parts of government have done.
He added: “There urgently needs to be central political direction and decisions on the detail of the future relationship and the overarching strategy for the next phase – this should all then be turned into legal text as soon as possible (to help the UK get on the front foot.”
