In his admirably brief and necessarily brutal, Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now, Ian Dunt tells how civil servants brief business leaders while they wait to meet David Davis.
For all his appearance as a tough guy with the strength to handle the most complicated diplomatic crisis the British have faced since the Second World War, Davis seems closer in spirit to a bubbly PR girl than a hard-headed statesman. He wants to hear only good news. He wants to see only smiling faces. Like Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union thinks we should all accentuate the positive.
On no account must businessmen and women say they are worried about Britain abandoning its membership of the single market, the civil servants warn. They needed to ‘go into the meeting saying that they were very excited by the possibilities of Brexit. Anyone who felt differently tended to be asked to leave in the first five minutes’.
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