Britain is not ready to face Brussels in the massively complex trade negotiations that will begin if Theresa May gets her Brexit deal through Parliament, the UK's former ambassador to the EU has warned.

Sir Ivan Rogers said talks on trade and security - potentially lasting five years - will be much more complex than the Article 50 withdrawal process, which has occupied much of the Government's efforts since the 2016 referendum.

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He suggested the Prime Minister should shut down Stephen Barclay's Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) and take personal control of negotiations with a team reporting to her led by Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster David Lidington in the Cabinet Office.

"This is a much bigger task for London - for Whitehall and Westminster - than the negotiation we have just been through," Sir Ivan told the Institute for Government.

"It's going to involve every department of state in depth from the top of those departments right down through the system."

On the Brussels side, seasoned trade negotiators are already in place, said Sir Ivan, who quit as UK permanent representative in 2017 after clashing with ministers over Brexit.

He warned the same was not true in London.

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"You've got to have confidence as chief trade negotiator, both at an official and ministerial level, that you have got a highly competent set of people in every area from aviation to energy to phytosanitary to competition to employment," Sir Ivan said.

"In every area, you've got to have vetted that team, know it's got the capabilities, know it's got the resources, know it's got the legal framework and the background and be at least as good as the team on the opposite side of the table.

"It isn't the case. We are not in that position."

Sir Ivan said it was a "mistake" for Mrs May to establish DExEU and the Department for International Trade in 2016 as it created tensions between different parts of Government involved in the withdrawal process.

He said she should now shut DExEU down before embarking on future trade and security talks with the EU.

"I would run it from the centre and I would have a sizeable, but not huge, team in the centre running the negotiations and drawing on all the capabilities of the departments," he said.

It was "not healthy" that chief negotiator Olly Robbins - who went from running DExEU to reporting direct to the PM - has become the target for criticism over the conduct of the talks, he said.

Sir Ivan said the PM would have to display "much more openness" and less secrecy during the trade negotiations if she is to take the public with her.
"You can't operate in the way this Government has operated in the Withdrawal Agreement in a trade negotiation," he said.

Talks will involve "massively difficult and controversial" trade-offs between priorities like market access and freedom of movement, he said, and interest groups like the fishing community were likely to complain they are being "sold down the river".

"If you can't as a political leader articulate that to the public, then you are going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble in three years' time," Sir Ivan warned.

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High-profile sectors like fisheries and manufacturing exporters, which have dominated the Government's thinking so far, will have to give ground in trade talks to the service sector, which is of greater economic importance to the UK, he added.

The Government's focus so far on goods and tariffs risks leaving the services sector in "a very bad world" after Brexit, as its biggest export markets are endangered, Sir Ivan warned.

Answering questions at the IFG in London, he said anyone thinking they have heard the last of Brexit when the UK formally leaves the EU is in for a disappointment.

"We will be in a state of permanent negotiation," he predicted.
"These fantasies of relief and liberation are fantasies."