Whitehall, meanwhile, will be severely stretched by the mammoth exercise of withdrawal. The civil service has zero spare capacity after the cuts of the last five years: many departments have seen budget cuts of over a quarter since 2010, and total civil service employment has fallen by almost a fifth in the same period. Further spending reductions for the coming years were set out in last year’s spending review. The UK has no current capacity at all in trade negotiations, as this is a job that has been outsourced to Brussels. The task of reviewing 40 years of EU and domestic legislation could take five or ten years. It will make it very difficult for the government to embark on any new policy while it reviews all these old policies. Whitehall also risks becoming very clumsy in handling important relationships (such as with Scotland: see below) because it will be so severely distracted.
Ah, so brexit is just creating the need for Her Majesty’s Jobs program.
