Never Mind Leaked Memos - Keep An Eye On The Job Adverts

Leaked memo reveals the bleedin' obvious

Today's Brexit story is that a leaked document reveals that there is as yet no coherent plan for Brexit.  This is not too much of a revelation.  This far in, had a plan been in operation it would be obvious.  Even it were to be kept secret or partially secret it would be possible to get some idea of what was going on from what the government were actually doing.  As it is, it is clear from their actions that there is as yet no plan and no strategy.


The biggest problem is probably the civil service.  This doesn't appear to be the expensive but effective organisation those of us who have been around for a while remember and probably imagine is still there somewhere.  The number of directly employed civil servants is now very low, well under half a million.  According the New Statesman  

 The civil service is currently at its smallest size since the Second World War (391,360) and has been cut by 18 per cent since 2010.

They simply don't have the weight of numbers that organising something really big takes.  The first stage in any big project is always the one that needs the most brain power, and that is in shorter supply than we are used to.  Basically we aren't ready for Brexit yet.

The first step would be to create a set of general goals for what Brexit is supposed to achieve.  This is in itself a big enough stumbling block.  The media don't help by simplifying it into a choice between a hard and a soft Brexit.   Even if those are good descriptions of the general type of Brexit available - which I doubt - even within either approach there are a huge range of possible options.  The issue that creates the most discussion, immigration, being a case in point.  A hard Brexit that effectively stops Europeans from becoming resident in Britain and presumably concedes that those living there will be obliged to return is very different from a hard Brexit where that is the aim but it is phased in over a period of years.  Either option is alarming for certain people, but the people it alarms are very different.  Scaring off people who want to live here is one thing.  Giving people who want to come here a long time window to do it in quite another.  

As I say immigration is a hot button topic at the moment but there are similar issues in a huge number of areas of policy, commerce and even down to simple things like the layout of airports.

Overall, the fact that there is no plan yet isn't a surprise. The effort needed to create a workable one is so great that no more than a rough outline could exist by now.  Given that there is no consensus even on the goals, it is going to be hard work to even get to this stage.   The first sign it is getting somewhere will be job adverts for government posts.  There will need to be lots of them.  There is simply no way something as big as Brexit can be done on the cheap or without a lot of hands on the pumps.   The fun will start when the penny drops that our taxes will have to go up to pay for them.