Who is in charge of Brexit? ‘It’s all very difficult,’ says Hammond
A turf war in government is unsettling businesses, which are unsure of how the UK’s negotiating strategy for Brexit will develop.
When asked this week who was in charge of Brexit, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, demurred, according to a businessman, saying that it is “all very difficult at the moment”.
Mr Hammond, prime minister Theresa May, Brexit minister David Davis and Liam Fox, and the international trade minister have all, along with the business department, summoned executives to meetings since June to get a feel for the priorities of the private sector in the forthcoming negotiations with Brussels.
One participant, who had taken part in meetings with three different government departments since July, said he was growing weary of repeating the same list of negotiating priorities to different ministers and departments.
Another said that while Mr Hammond was adopting a cautious, evidence-based approach to future business links with the EU, pro-Brexit ministers were eager to make a clean break with the single market and customs union.
“There are two significant strands of thinking in government,” said one person who had attended the Whitehall meetings. “One strand is gung-ho and wants to drive on without fully understanding the consequences, the other is more measured.”
The chancellor’s aides said they “did not recognise” the comment from Mr Hammond that it was “difficult” to pin down who was in charge of Brexit.
Participants at a meeting with Mr Hammond on Wednesday said that, after the chancellor had left the room, the main topic of conversation had been the lack of a single point of contact in government to which business could represent its views.
Carolyn Fairbairn, CBI director-general, is ringing round business leaders to marshal support for a formal request for the establishment of clearer lines of communication with government.
Ms Fairbairn said: “A clear roadmap and architecture should be built so firms know who to engage with over what timeframe.”
The CBI and several of the business leaders who met with Mr Hammond on Wednesday believe the Treasury to be the most obvious choice for such a single point of contact
Mr Hammond had asked those at their meeting for their views both on the priorities for a post-Brexit settlement as well as suggestions for how the government could create more confidence in the economy.
One said that business demands essentially boiled down to access to the single market “without any of the bad bits”, in effect a retention of financial services’ passporting rights, intellectual property protection and access to the single market — but with no interference from the EU on issues such as pay.
“This [government] could spell out a new era for relations between business and government, a new ‘grand bargain’,” he said. “But if our goodwill is abused, or our views misrepresented, that goodwill could be very quickly used up.”
Another participant at the meeting with Mr Hammond and Treasury officials said that the most obvious interlocutor for business with government over Brexit was the Treasury.
One government insider said there was not a lack of “joined-up government” and it made sense for all relevant government departments to meet business, since each had their own specific role in the complex EU negotiation. It was impractical to have all ministers and all business leaders in the room at any given time; the government machine would ensure that the separate talks were all co-ordinated centrally.
Mr Hammond and Treasury colleagues held four meetings with business representatives this week in advance of his Autumn Statement on November 23.
Participants included the heads of business lobby groups such as the CBI and the Federation of Small Businesses, as well as chief executives and chairmen of companies such as John Lewis, British Airways, Rolls-Royce and BlackRock.
After the meetings, Mr Hammond said: “We have an opportunity to forge a new role for ourselves in the world, to negotiate our own trade deals and be a positive and powerful force for free trade and it is crucial that government and business work together to make it happen.”