For a post-Brexit UK to thrive, the government must focus on making the Northern Ireland protocol work
Last week, senior figures from government, business and civil society in the UK, EU, US, Canada and China participated in a Ditchley conference on UK-EU relations. Our aim was to articulate steps that each could take to nudge the new relationship into a better place. The fraught opening months of the post-Brexit trade deal show how difficult this process may be.
For this government, the EU is not a priority. It wants to focus on other parts of the world, not least the US and Indo-Pacific, as the recent integrated review made clear. Its other priority is domestic, on the post-pandemic recovery and “levelling up”.