Evidence of the fragmented approach to the government’s Brexit strategy has been growing since the election, with separate departments forging their own responses to an apparent policy vacuum at the heart of government. Now the head of the UK’s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has issued a remarkable criticism of the government on the subject. Amyas Morse said that he had seen no ministerial plan to push through the necessary legal and statutory changes for the UK to leave the EU. “We have an issue there because we have departmental government,” he said. “What we don’t want to find is that at the first tap it falls apart like a chocolate orange.” Here are five recent examples of the problem:

Drugs letter

Perhaps the starkest freelance venture came when the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and the business secretary, Greg Clark, took it upon themselves to write to the Financial Times to reassure the pharmaceutical industry that Britain would continue to collaborate with the EU medicines agency. One senior official claims this took place without prior consultation with Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU, even though such a promise potentially sets a huge precedent for other industries seeking regulatory continuity. DExEU is meant to coordinate Brexit policy, but insiders say that since the departure of Downing Street enforcer Fiona Hill there has been no one to stop ministers speaking out independently.



Boris whistling

It is not just those ministers favouring a softer Brexit who have been taking advantage of the paralysis. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, once more caused red faces across Whitehall this week when he suggested in parliament that the EU should “go whistle” if it wants a divorce settlement from Britain. It placed DExEU in a particularly awkward spot, as the Brexit secretary, David Davis, has been dropping hints ahead of next week’s talks that he concedes the need for some sort of financial obligation. The more Johnson stamps around in hobnail boots, the harder it will be for Davis both to prove that Britain is serious in Brussels and to sell the eventual climbdown to backbenchers.



Brussels embassy

As the talks resume in Brussels next week, more and more strain will be placed on the relationship between Britain’s permanent representatives to the EU, who are the supposed experts, and the DExEU officials, based at 9 Downing Street, who are closer to the prime minister. Efforts to rebuild morale after the forced departure of the UK ambassador to the EU, Ivan Rogers, were dealt a blow this week by claims that his successor, Tim Barrow, has not permanently moved to Belgium yet and struggles against officials like Robbins to make his voice heard with Theresa May and Davis.

Chevening summit

There are signs that the election drubbing has forced the government to listen more carefully to other voices on Brexit. But a decision by DExEU to invite business leaders to a summit with officials from the business department and Treasury was seen by many as too little, too late. While the chancellor, Philip Hammond (who was in Germany for the G20), welcomed a demand by the CBI for a delay to leaving the single market in a long transition phase, some business leaders at the Chevening retreat reported that Davis was cooler on the idea, leaving everyone more confused afterwards than before.



Treasury lobbying

The tension between Hammond and Brexiters like Davis is on display almost every day now, even though the Brexit secretary insists there is “not a cigarette paper” between them. As well as his remarks in Hamburg, the chancellor also used another speech in Germany to ridicule Boris Johnson’s infamous “have cake, eat cake” strategy. Whether the differences reflect lack of coordination or a deliberate strategy of open political warfare matters little to business leaders and EU negotiators, who say they are left baffled as to what the government’s official Brexit strategy amounts to.