Over the last few days there have been a series of concerning statements from several senior Government Ministers that relate to our departure from the European Union. They have emerged at the same time as Donald Trump was broadcast getting into an argument with a journalist at a press conference. When commentators suggested Trump might be choosing to act as he did to divert attention away from the real issues that he should be dealing with, the thought emerged that perhaps the same is true of our Ministers who may be choosing to look incompetent for a tactical reason? If so the question is what their real strategy is, bearing in mind they are due to meet today as a Cabinet to agree our EU deal? I recall many years ago when I attended an event at which a Government Minister was due to speak, but had been called away at the very last minute. The Minister had released her speech to the organisers and so one of them read it out in her absence. It was clear from the contribution that every word, and even jokes were carefully written out and it displayed how Ministers at that time did not say anything that was not meaningfully planned.

The speech by Dominic Raab is the most significant of the three and it is clearly very disturbing, coming from an MP whose constituency is in the same region as the residents of Dover. If he doesn’t understand how much we all depend on Dover for goods, he clearly needs to do some research. Although his constituency is only 21 miles from the main Eurostar station in central London where he presumably starts most of his journeys to Brussels and a massive 85 miles away from Dover, due to the traffic and speed limitations it would only take 30 minutes longer to drive to Dover than if he drove to St Pancras so perhaps over the next few weeks he could visit Dover a few times to get a real grasp of how many lorries are crossing the Channel every day. It is also vital that the rest of his speech is challenged. He went on to state that the reason why Dover is so critical for our nation is due to the need “to ensure frictionless trade at the border, particularly for just in time manufacturing goods, whether pharmaceutical goods or perishable goods like food”. The truth is that Just In Time is a manufacturing technique which applies to almost all industries to differing degrees and in addition to the requirement for frictionless trade because of JIT, businesses and even individuals who order manufactured goods supplied from European based businesses and distribution centres need to have the confidence that when they order their requirements that they will arrive in a few days, not take a few weeks. Dominic’s speech came a few days after his Departments announced that only 10% of the haulage traffic which our nation needs each day to maintain our economy would be allowed to take place if the deal with the EU proves to be inadequate, or no deal is achieved at all.

Then there was a comment by Liam Fox arguing that if we do end up signing a temporary deal with the EU that we need to be able to withdraw from it unilaterally whenever it suits us to do so. It seems concerning that someone who claims to understand how businesses make deals does not realise that contracts require consent by both sides to be ended without a severe penalty directed at those who pull out without any warning. In any event bearing in mind his claim from July 2017 that a post-Brexit free trade deal with the EU should be the “easiest in human history” and that the UK could survive without one suggests that he is someone whose judgements are a bit questionable.

The final statement came from Jeremy Hunt who responded to questions regarding a second referendum. He stated this “would be profoundly undemocratic…if you decide to have a referendum then a democracy has to then accept the result, it’s a very important thing” which is all very credible as an argument in isolation. However in the case of our Foreign Secretary he needs to be reminded that in late June 2016 just after David Cameron had resigned and before George Osborne also chose to step down Jeremy stated he was “seriously considering” a bid for the Conservative leadership which he suggested should be either through a general election or a second referendum and that the terms of any UK-EU trade deals would be a “huge decision” and that people should have the chance to give their verdict.