The move to merge the UK government’s departments of trade and business has been likened by one journalist to rearranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship. But it is in fact a significant moment in the country’s foreign and economic policy – and a tacit acknowledgement that attempts to seize Brexit “opportunities” through trade have been a failure.
For as a result of the changes, the Department for International Trade no longer exists. Set up less than a month after the 2016 referendum, it was created by former prime minister Theresa May as a way of demonstrating sovereignty through independence from the EU.
