Labour Showing ‘Seriousness’ By Moving EU 'Reset' Job To Cabinet Office
The government has confirmed Nick Thomas-Symonds has responsibility for EU relations as a Cabinet Office minister (Alamy)
3 min read
Moving responsibility for dealing with the European Union closer to Number 10 shows “a level of seriousness” from Labour in resetting relations with Brussels, according to a former government special adviser on Europe who was involved in the Brexit negotiations.
Raoul Ruparel, who worked for Theresa May and in the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU), told PoliticsHome giving responsibility to Nick Thomas-Symonds, who operates out of the Cabinet Office, rather than a Foreign Office minister, will help oversee other departments as the new government tries to improve the UK’s trading relationship with member states.
Speaking to The Rundown podcast, he said: “I think one of the challenges we had at DExEU was that it's very hard to be a line department that corrals other line departments to do what you want in negotiation, and the Cabinet Office has more of this executive power.”
Ruparel said on things like a new veterinary agreement the negotiation will be done by people from Defra: “So the Cabinet Office being able to direct and corral them will be helpful, so it does signal that kind of seriousness there.”
On Wednesday in a written ministerial statement titled ‘the machinery of government’, Starmer confirmed “responsibility for the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union” was moving from the Foreign Office, and would allow Thomas-Symonds, who is the Paymaster General, to serve as Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations.
The PM said this would include “overseeing the existing relationship, and leading the cross-government work to deepen this relationship in the future”, while allowing the the Foreign Office to remain responsible for “bilateral relationships”.
There had been some eyebrows raised at the new government having both a Europe Minister in Stephen Doughty, as well as an EU relations minister, but Thomas-Symonds, in his first outing at the despatch box on Thursday, sought to allay any concerns.
The minister told the House of Commons the statement from the PM “clearly sets out the division between the roles”, adding: “I look forward to leading from the Cabinet Office on the cross-Department and cross-Whitehall UK-EU reset.
“Of course, the FCDO will continue to deliver the diplomacy across Europe that is vital to that.”
Leading academic Jill Rutter agreed it was a “good move”, adding: “I think what putting it in the Cabinet Office recognises is that EU issues are to an extent about foreign policy, but they also touch on huge areas of domestic policy, which really, the Foreign Office is never going to be that interested in.”
The senior research fellow at think tank UK In A Changing Europe told the podcast: “You also have to think about the relationship with the devolved nations, relationships to other trade agreements etc, and that sort of central bringing together really can only happen in the Cabinet Office.
“It's not the Foreign Office's comparative advantage, so I think that really is quite serious.”
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