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In an excoriating denunciation of the British political class that goes to the top of government, Ivan Rogers said the Brexit debate had suffered from “opacity, delusion-mongering and mendacity on all sides” and predicted the public would not forgive politicians.
“The whole conduct of the negotiation has further burned through trust in the political class,” he said in a speech at the University of Liverpool on Wednesday. “We shall need a radically different method and style if the country is to heal and unify behind some proposed destination.”
Without naming May, he said the country required “leadership which is far more honest in setting out the fundamental choices still ahead, the difficult trade-offs between sovereignty and national control”.
He also criticised “a secretive opaque government” that has “repeatedly failed to explain to a wider audience what the real constraints and trade-offs are” to reach the deal the prime minister has struck with the EU.
And revealing that he deplores the term “people’s vote”, he warned those advocating a second referendum that they must consider “the huge further alienation” from those who think that “their views are being ignored until they conform”. [...]