May blamed for ‘chaos’ of no-deal preparation
Departments say demand to draw up 70 documents to help businesses over Brexit defies logic
Theresa May has been blamed for “chaotic” preparations for a no-deal Brexit as a row broke out in Whitehall over how to advise businesses to get ready for the possibility. Civil servants have been ordered to compile 70 “technical notices” to explain to firms and self-employed workers what they need to do to be ready for Britain leaving the EU without a deal. But ministers have complained that they were not consulted about it.
THERESA MAY has been blamed for “chaotic” preparations for a no-deal Brexit as a row broke out in Whitehall over how to advise businesses to get ready for the possibility.
Civil servants have been ordered to compile 70 “technical notices” by the end of this month to explain to firms and self-employed workers what they need to do to be ready for Britain leaving the EU without a deal.
But ministers have complained that they were not consulted before Mrs May made an announcement about the technical notices last month, and officials say they are drawing up extra documents “just to make the numbers fit”.
Downing Street said planning for the notices had been going on for months before Mrs May spoke publicly about them in July, and that each of the 70 areas had been carefully mapped out.
After comments by Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, that a nodeal Brexit is now a “60-40” likelihood, the documents are more keenly awaited than ever by business leaders.
The Government plans to publish the papers in three batches in consecutive weeks starting around Aug 20.
However, officials told The Daily Telegraph that Whitehall departments were unhappy that they were being told how many papers they must prepare, rather than deciding for themselves based on “logic”.
A senior civil servant said: “No one really thought this through properly. In some cases it would be easier to produce one paper that deals with everything a particular sector needs to know, but instead we are being told we have to do several just so the total adds up to 70. The whole thing has been chaotic.” A government minister told The Telegraph: “When Theresa May announced last month that there would be 70 papers, it was news to me. I was told that two or three of them would relate to me, but I hadn’t really been consulted before that.”
The Department for Exiting the EU, headed by Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, is responsible for co-ordinating no-deal preparation.
Mrs May will visit Edinburgh today to announce a £1.2billion city deal for Edinburgh and the south-east of Scotland to support university research, transport links and new housing.
Speaking ahead of the visit to Scotland, Mrs May said: “By making the most of our country’s assets and the talents of all of our people, we can build
‘In some cases it would be easier to produce one paper that deals with everything a sector needs to know’
a brighter future for the whole UK.” Meanwhile, Sir Bernard Jenkin, the Brexiteer Tory MP, said there would be “rioting in the streets” in EU member states if a Brexit deal put up trade barriers between Britain and the EU.
He said: “The Civil Service and the Government are feeding the industry and the industry is feeding the Government with this diet of gloom and alarm and despondency. Actually, it’s unnecessary and we will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about, a bit like the Millennium bug.”
He said if Britain left the EU without a deal and traded on World Trade Organisation terms it would not be “an impediment” because most countries that trade on those terms have increased trade with the EU faster than the UK has during its membership.