A new report from UK in a Changing Europe highlights some of the problems with the way the government has managed Brexit since the UK left the EU in 2020. Approaches have developed piecemeal as a result of individual decisions by an ever-changing cast list of ministers. An incoming government should set a more strategic course.  

It will need to work out how to approach the upcoming review of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, due to start in May 2026, and an array of deadlines which fall the other side of the election. But the UKICE report makes clear that there are bigger questions to address.

Do responsibilities for handling post-Brexit relations sit with the right departments?  

There is little discernible appetite in either the Conservative or Labour parties for more machinery of government changes. But there are options for responsibility changes without reorganising and renaming departments. The first issue is whether to leave the lead on EU issues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), where it moved overnight when David Frost quit the government in December 2021. The FCDO clearly has a big role on EU relations, and that may increase if a future government majors on more structured defence and security cooperation. But most day-to-day concerns are about detailed regulations, their impact on UK business and on the UK internal market – and the implications for Northern Ireland and on UK wider trade policy – not big vision policy. Responsibility should return to the centre of government as the logical place to connect those moving parts.

Second is whether it is time to remove one of the post-referendum anomalies. In 2016 there was a clear split created by Theresa May. The Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) would lead on EU negotiations; the Department for International Trade (DIT), while specifically excluded from a role in the UK’s biggest trade deal, would lead on every other trade deal. That always created an incentive for DIT ministers to want the hardest possible Brexit to maximise their flexibility to do new deals. But in the long run it makes no sense to segment trade policy responsibilities in that way.

Does the UK need a clear trade strategy, including its trade relationship with the EU?  

The UK has revealed preferences on trade – but these change with the prime minister and secretary of state. With the EU it was to prioritise regulatory freedom (for GB at least) over market access. For the rest of the world, however, it seemed to be – under the Boris Johnson/Liz Truss tenures – to notch up as many deals as possible, even though some in the cabinet worry how completed deals will impact on farmers. What the UK has never done is set out some clear objectives for its trade policy which takes full account of what that means for its trade relationship with the EU and for the UK internal market. A new government should do that (and give parliament a chance to debate it – along with the objectives for individual trade deals)....

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