{"id":266594,"date":"2025-07-16T12:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T12:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/266594\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T12:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T12:28:10","slug":"ex-trade-chief-sir-crawford-falconer-on-brexit-bureaucracy-and-why-mog-changes-are-overrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/266594\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-trade chief Sir Crawford Falconer on Brexit, bureaucracy and why MOG changes are overrated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking back on Brexit: are there lessons to learn from the negotiations and the aftermath of that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes \u2013 the extent to which you\u2019re dependent on the world economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think what needed to change culturally, within the political class and within officialdom, business, et cetera, is [the understanding of] the extent to which you are taking sovereign control only of your own economy \u2013 and therefore you\u2019ve got to be alive to how you manage the international economy. My view was that, having spent so long inside the EU, there was not the acute sensitivity to how you position yourself to deal with the global economy at a government-to-government level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t that that cultural mindset was weak for remainers and strong for Brexiteers \u2013 it was pervasive across the whole spectrum. There\u2019s a whole area of decision-making where you haven\u2019t had 20 or 30 years of making existential decisions\u2026 so there just wasn\u2019t that habit of decision-making that there had been in some other domains, like defence and security, for instance; to some extent in foreign affairs; and mostly in fiscal matters.<\/p>\n

Therefore, everything was de novo, or \u201cwhy can\u2019t we do this?\u201d [Because] that\u2019s not how it works \u2013 but there was no inherited sense of how it works, because there was no history of having done it. And I think there\u2019s still a long way to go to sharpen things up.<\/p>\n

Are there lessons the UK can take from New Zealand, where you started your trade career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I come from a country which is a long way away, which is very small and has no power. But because it had survived on the international market for 30 years, it had a habit of understanding where the strong points and weak points were. Ministers and government had a degree of continuity \u2013 they\u2019d seen the movies before. So the decision-making was much more focused: they didn\u2019t consider options as if they were theoretically possible, because they knew they didn\u2019t work. And so, oddly enough, I often found that there was a greater degree of realism at the top bureaucratic level and at the political level in a funny little country at the other end of the world than there was in the heart of a G7 economy \u2013 which would probably drive all my civil service colleagues to distraction. It used to drive me to distraction, certainly, [thinking]: \u201cDon\u2019t you get how important this is?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you think we\u2019ve done enough with the opportunities afforded to us by Brexit?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so. But, for the reasons I described, it\u2019s probably understandable. And geography is a factor: if you look at the trend line of our exports, they\u2019ve been dropping to the EU for years. They\u2019ve been going to where the growth has been, which is in East Asia and other parts of the world like the Middle East. But that wasn\u2019t really the horizon, generally, that lots of British businesses were used to \u2013 so you\u2019ve got to make inroads into those economies. Not that you abandon your traditional trading partners, but: go where the growth is. I think less has been made of that than really should have been.<\/p>\n

In recent months, the UK has reached trade agreements with the EU, the US and India.\u00a0Do you think the civil service has the capacity to negotiate multiple trade deals at once effectively?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think so. We always managed it, and we had a lot going on at various times. To be doing deals with ASEAN, for example, at the same time as all the others would be a stretch. There would be a resources question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I could tell you 20 things that are wrong with the Whitehall bureaucracy when it comes to resourcing and all the rest of it for negotiations. But it has worked, and it sort of continues to work. You can always improve things. But we\u2019ve been doing more trade negotiations than anybody else in the world [recently] \u2013 so I think we\u2019ve done really very well. I would say that, wouldn\u2019t I? But as far as I can see, I think the show can still be on the road pretty effectively.<\/p>\n

Do you have ideas about what needs to change in Whitehall?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, but I don\u2019t think they can be done.<\/p>\n

The Australians, the New Zealanders and the Canadians all have a combined foreign-and-trade ministry arrangement. Ideally, I think that makes sense. If you\u2019re going to house a trade negotiating and trade policy function, where does it really belong in the abstract? I\u2019d say the logic of what those three have done makes sense for the modern world.<\/p>\n

I just don\u2019t think that\u2019s possible [here], given the state of the FCDO at the moment. It\u2019s one of those things where one of us is driven crazy by an official saying: \u201cI think the best thing that could happen, secretary of state, is that the FCDO and the trade part of DBT should come together. But actually they can\u2019t, so therefore don\u2019t do it.\u201d That\u2019s sort of what I\u2019m saying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So you wouldn\u2019t be in favour of a machinery of government change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sickness inside any organisation, public or private, is [thinking] that somehow structure is the answer to everything. I mean, it\u2019s the answer to some things, but you\u2019d just get driven crazy by the sheer joy that would appear on senior officials\u2019 faces at the prospect of a MoG change. I\u2019d never heard of a MoG change before I got to London, I thought: \u201cWhat the hell is a MoG change?\u201d It was the only thing I ever saw anybody get excited about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the fundamental question. What\u2019s a bit challenging is what I call an additionality, really, of having a more joined-up, strategic view about what the technicalities of the politics are, what the technicalities of the trading arrangements are, together with what the geopolitics of the trading arrangements are now. There, I think, a lot of countries are struggling with having a coherent vision. I think that\u2019s an area where we need to do a wee bit more work. I mean, we had to be resourced up with trade-policy expertise and trade-negotiations expertise [when I arrived at DIT in 2017] because we didn\u2019t have it. Getting that in train was a large chunk of what I had to do when I came here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I do think it became a bit of a fashion to have second permanent secretaries. When I first arrived here, I think there might have been one or two, and then [suddenly] they were all over the place<\/p>\n

\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What should that joined-up, strategic view look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As always, the world evolves and I think what happened with Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, and the way in which the Chinese are operating \u2013 the whole economic security side of things starts to become more visibly part and parcel of what your trade policy is. The UK has been very fortunate, because it has people in the deep state who are skilled enough in those areas, and they can transfer those skills into roles, but it\u2019s still a bit challenging to bring those together. We\u2019ve done amazing things in getting that to work well, but I still think we need a more joined-up, coherent view about how our defence and strategic and political imperatives are aligned with our trade policy and trade-negotiating strategies. It\u2019s still a little bit clunky.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think you need a lot of people; I just think we need to turn our minds to how we can blend those skills. It\u2019s difficult in any system. That\u2019s why the Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians have combined ministries, largely for management reasons \u2013 if you\u2019re a small or medium-sized economy running a foreign service, it\u2019s bloody expensive. You can\u2019t afford to have two of them, the overhead is too high. So, therefore, those countries have a cadre of people who\u2019ve developed over 20 years, who\u2019ve worked on both sides of the street \u2013 and we don\u2019t. And, of course, we need them now, not 20 years from now. So I think there\u2019s a wee bit of a challenge for how we upskill in that area.<\/p>\n

A MoG change involving the FCDO and DBT isn\u2019t the answer, but I think there needs to be a bit more coherence in how you put those together. I\u2019m not convinced that the culture of a business and trade ministry is sufficient to get you those skills. And I\u2019m not convinced that an FCDO \u2013 although it has overseas networks and works with DBT \u2013 is capable of doing that either. I think you need to have some kind of coherent plan for how you develop those kinds of people \u2013 and quickly. I do think that\u2019s something where there\u2019s a bit of unfinished business.<\/p>\n

Are you concerned that the government no longer has a UK chief trade negotiation adviser?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, there are DGs there \u2013 people that worked with me \u2013 and I think ministers are in very safe hands.

\nThat second permanent secretary and chief trade negotiation adviser role was created because we didn\u2019t have anything before, and we needed to create that function and set the whole system up. So you could argue that ministers felt that was needed at a particular point in time, and now it\u2019s sort of done, you don\u2019t need it any more. And I do think it became a bit of a fashion to have second permanent secretaries. When I first arrived here, I think there might have been one or two, and then [suddenly] they were all over the place. So I\u2019m not so bothered about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only thing I would worry about is that you don\u2019t have an independent trade department and you don\u2019t have a leadership figure at that level on trade, making you more vulnerable to capture by domestic interests. It\u2019s not in itself decisive, but \u2013 is it a straw in the wind that things are moving away from prioritising the equal importance of trade to your domestic industry considerations? Are you sure you\u2019ve got enough guard rails to make sure that the risk of capture is being managed? Having said that, even if you had somebody in that role, it doesn\u2019t mean to say you\u2019re still protected from it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you think that \u201ccapture\u201d is happening now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s the risk. I don\u2019t have any evidence to think anything\u2019s gone off the rails, but those are questions that, I think, are legitimately asked and need to be seriously answered.<\/p>\n

There are places where the trade function is nested with the business function, like the Korean model and the Japanese model, to some extent. There\u2019s serious capture in both of those places and in other places where that model exists. DBT is a relatively new department, so I think it\u2019s a bit too early to be smug about whether or not that risk has been avoided.<\/p>\n

How do you guard against that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I\u2019m talking about the kind of people we need to be training now, that\u2019s for two reasons: one, because we need those people who have got that perspective; and secondly, they need to be a counterbalance to just surrendering to the centre of gravity of a domestic business department.

\nI don\u2019t have anywhere else in mind where you could realistically nest the trade function. So having some additionality for what I\u2019d call the geo-strategic trade issues and function is an added way to strengthen an independent culture, because the trade negotiating and trade policy function is disruptive and is meant to be disruptive. It\u2019s just the way it is, and you won\u2019t do it if your first kneejerk reaction is you don\u2019t want to get phone calls from the CEO of this place and the CEO of that place. If they\u2019re making those calls to another department, that\u2019s fine, but if those decisions have been made by officials and by ministers who\u2019ve got conflicting responsibilities, you run the risk \u2013 though I don\u2019t think it\u2019s happening \u2013 of losing that outside perspective on what you need to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like when you don\u2019t have a foreign ministry which has a trade function under it \u2013 and therefore has credibility around the cabinet table for its views about what you\u2019re doing and what that will mean for your international relationships \u2013 then you don\u2019t have the counterweight. So that\u2019s a vulnerability that they need to be very mindful of.<\/p>\n

With everything going on with trade right now, do you think it would be a good idea for the government to renew your contract?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen, I\u2019ve given various governments seven and a half years of advice. I think they\u2019re entitled to look for that advice from somewhere else.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looking back on Brexit: are there lessons to learn from the negotiations and the aftermath of that? Yes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-266594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114862915753188565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}