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.