Funnily enough, today’s Cabinet meeting was rather dominated by a discussion on the result of the EU referendum. The majority of the ‘serious’ 90 minute meeting was taken up by that small matter, though ministers were also briefed by the head of MI5 and by Oliver Letwin on implementing other manifesto promises, such as the seven-day NHS and building more homes.
The main announcement from the meeting is the creation of a new unit in the Cabinet Office that will work on the ground work for Brexit. The Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman said:
‘The Prime Minister proposed, and the Cabinet supported, the establishment of a new unit to lead intensive civil service work on the issues that will need to be worked through in order to present options and advice to a new Prime Minister and a new Cabinet, this unit will be based in the Cabinet office, it will bring together officials from that department, from the FCO, Treasury and possibly others, it will report to Cabinet, and will obviously be engaging with departments across Whitehall on relevant issues, as well as working closely with officials from the devolved administrations. Alongside this, Oliver Letwin will play a facilitative role hearing views from across the government and outside on issues that need to be considered by the new unit.’
The reason for this unit is that the government has not done any official contingency planning for Brexit, and so this is now the official work that it refused to do before the vote. This is another reason for not triggering Article 50 straight away: that officials need to work out what happens next.
What may amuse some Tory MPs is that Oliver Letwin, who has what can best be described as a chequered history when it comes to administration and brokering deals. But this is what the new government will look like for the next few months until the new Tory leader is announced, and the date for that has just been confirmed as 2 September.
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