London: A SENIOR British diplomat who warned that negotiating a EU exit could take 10 years has quit the civil service, days after stepping down as the UK’s envoy to the bloc, the government said yesterday.
Ivan Rogers unexpectedly resigned as Britain’s permanent representative in Brussels on Tuesday, months before divorce talks are due to start, fueling opposition claims that the government’s plans for Britain’s EU exit are in disarray.
Rogers came under pressure following last month’s leak of his suggestion that it could take up to a decade to strike a new trade deal. Politicians who support Brexit called him overly negative.
Tim Barrow, a former UK ambassador to Russia, has been appointed to replace him.
In a farewell email, Rogers told his staff to beware of politicians’ “ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking.” Britain’s Foreign Office said Rogers had not sought a new post, “and has therefore resigned from civil service with immediate effect.”
Prime Minister Theresa May has refused to reveal details of Britain’s goals or negotiating strategy, saying that would weaken its hand.
Hard-core Brexiteers in May’s Conservative government want to quit the EU’s single market in goods and services, gaining the freedom to strike trade deals elsewhere — and to end free movement of people from the EU to Britain. But other Cabinet ministers fear leaving single market would spell disaster for British businesses.
