Leaked Cabinet Office memo says UK has no plan for Brexit

There is no overall UK plan for Brexit, an extra 30,000 civil servants are needed to manage the process, and Whitehall is struggling to manage with demands of the country’s divorce from the EU, according to a leaked Cabinet Office memo.

The memo obtained by The Times, revealed the government was working on 500 Brexit-related projects and Cabinet divisions were hampering progress.

It suggested the government may need another six months before the government agrees on what it hopes to accomplish from negotiations with the EU. Prime Minister Theresa May said Article 50, which starts the two-year clock on formal proceedings, would be triggered by the end of March.

The memo, dated 7 November, was prepared for the Cabinet Office by a consultant working for the department, and said May had a tendency of “drawing in decisions and details to settle matters herself”, which is unlikely to be sustained.

It goes on to highlight cabinet splits between Brexiteers, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis and International Trade secretary Liam Fox, and on the other side, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark.

Downing Street it did “not recognise” the claims, adding it “is not a government report”.

“We are focused on getting on with the job of Brexit and making a success of it,” a spokesman said.

Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary and leading eurosceptic, told the BBC on Tuesday that he did not know where the memo came from.

“It’s certainly not a government report. It’s certainly not something that has been tabled to our committee. I haven’t seen these great divisions I read about in the papers. It’s a complex process albeit with some simple objectives.”

“My own experience is very different to that”.

The memo said every department has developed a ‘bottom-up’ plan of what the impact of Brexit could be, and a plan to cope with the ‘worst case’ scenario.

“Although necessary, this falls considerably short of having a ‘government plan for Brexit’ because it has no prioritisation and no link to the overall negotiation strategy.”

It also said companies could “point a gun at the government head” after the Downing Street assured Nissan in October that it would not suffer from the country leaving the EU. This prompted the car maker to commit to building two new models at its Sunderland plant.