On the 8th of February, the Prime Minister organised a mini cabinet reshuffle with odd results. A promotion for someone under investigation, the creation of a department for a project which the man in charge does not believe in and the appointment of a serving minister and MP as chief of staff. If the Government wanted to get us talking about other things besides Partygate, they partly succeeded as more questionable decisions have come out of number 10. Since then, the situation in Ukraine and its borders has rightfully dominated the news but the recent reshuffle is more symbolic of the Government than you may think.

The most notable part of the reshuffle was the move of Jacob Rees-Mogg from Leader of the House to Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government efficiency. You would think by the way the Prime Minister talks about the Government, namely that it has cut crime (despite being incorrect) and developed the economy (only due to the dramatic fall in GDP last year) that the Government could not become any more efficient but there is plenty of room for improvement.

The biggest part of the role lies in the Brexit area. It has been over two years since we left the EU and now that the pandemic is on the retreat (at least for now) the Government has decided it is time to step up its search for the benefits of Brexit. You would think that since the referendum was 5 years ago these ideas would already be fully formed, but it appears not. The Government recently published a paper ‘celebrating’ two years of Brexit stating the four benefits that we have obtained since. It is fair to say it did not sell Brexit as a success. The four benefits named were nothing special: freeports, changing the colour of the passport, reducing plastic bags and ensigning pint glasses with the crown stamp. None of these measures filled me with excitement. To make matters worse, none of them required us to leave the EU and two of them were achieved beforehand. 

The Government now seems to be aiming higher than those non-benefits. Or, at least, it wants to appear to do so. The line ‘we delivered Brexit’ will only be sufficient for a certain length of time before people start asking ‘then what?’ What did it actually do for us? Now the Government can claim we have a whole department working on Brexit and that the benefits will be plentiful. As always with the Government, it does not matter whether this is actually the case. 

What surprised me was Rees-Mogg’s claim that ‘the overwhelming opportunity for Brexit is over the next 50 years.’ It looks like Mr Rees-Mogg has secured his tenure in the cabinet until he is 100. The Government will surely want to find these supposed benefits of Brexit now rather than in the next 50 years. Voters want to know how their lives can be improved now, not how the lives of their children and grandchildren will be better in years to come. 

Rees-Mogg’s reputation is not without its fair share of controversy. He had to apologise in 2019 for saying it would have been ‘common sense’ to flee Grenfell Tower during the fire, despite the fire brigade telling the residents to do the contrary. After Douglass Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said that Boris Johnson should resign Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed him as a ‘lightweight’ figure. With the union forever being questioned, now is not the time to have a government figure reducing the importance of the devolved administrations. Especially since Brexit, which Scotland did not vote for, there is increased pressure to prove the case for the union.  The Scots are hardly going to be full of hope when the man who is leading this charge is taking shots at one of their leaders and devolution as a whole. 

Once again there are chaotic moves being made in number 10. To me, this is what the Conservative Government under Boris Johnson is about- poor management. Although this reshuffle is not large, nor the most significant given other news stories, it is symbolic. 

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