Labour Showing ‘Seriousness’ By Moving EU 'Reset' Job To Cabinet Office

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”.

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