Sir Ivan Rogers gave a lecture to the UCL Euorpean Institute a couple of night ago. It was titled: Where did Brexit come from and where is it going to take the UK?
As can be seen from this rather incomplete Wikipedia entry he was a very senior civil servant, in important posts under both tory and Labour governments. He also spent some time in industry. Before he resigned he was
the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union. The United Kingdom's foremost diplomatic representative to the European Union, and head of the United Kingdom Representation to the European Union (UKREP)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Rogers
Sir Ivan knows what he is talking about. Far better, I suggest than just about any politician. I think he should be listened to.
His opening remarks:
We desperately need clear and honest thinking about our choices not just for the weeks but for the years, indeed decades, ahead. I continue to think that our political debate is bedevilled by what, at the time I resigned, I termed “muddled thinking”, and by fantasies and delusions as to what our options really are in the world as it is.
As opposed to several different worlds people on different sides of the debate would prefer to inhabit.
To be clear at the outset, I think these fantasies, which one would have hoped would be dissipating by now in the face of reality, are being propagated on all sides. The denialism is pretty universal. But if we are to take good decisions about our future, it is now genuinely urgent that we get beyond the myth-making.
Why then have we reached such a severe moment of political and constitutional crisis?
www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/sites/european-institute/files/sir_ivan_rogers_lecture_ucl_22012019.pdf
More tomorrow
