If we had decided to make Big Ben bong tonight, it would have marked the end of an era. But for those who work in government departments, it would have sounded like a starting pistol. There is a huge amount to do. The immediate focus will be on future relationship negotiations. A small “Taskforce Europe” team to go head to head with Barnier’s UK task force is being assembled at 70 Whitehall. But, while the team may be tight, negotiations will affect almost every department.
We will soon know what machinery Boris Johnson proposes to set up to oversee the decisionmaking. In the past 10 days the Chancellor has veered between saying that the UK would diverge from EU rules, the prize of Brexit, to clarifying that having the right did not mean we would use it — 2019 decisiveness could easily dissolve into 2020 dither.
The easiest part will be getting Brexit bills through. A majority of 80 and MPs yet to develop a taste for rebellion makes that a cinch. On the ground it is different. The Government claims to have been ready(ish) for a no-deal Brexit last autumn, though that was never tested. The UK needs to be prepared for big changes when Big Ben bongs on New Year’s Eve. We are about to find out just how much Brexit there is still to do.
Jill Rutter is a senior research fellow at UK in a Changing Europe
