Brexit 'delusions' risk putting UK into crisis, warns Ivan Rogers | The Guardian |

In an excoriating denunciation of the British political class that goes to the top of government, Ivan Rogers said the Brexit debate had suffered from "opacity, delusion-mongering and mendacity on all sides" and predicted the public would not forgive politicians.

"The whole conduct of the negotiation has further burned through trust in the political class," he said in a speech at the University of Liverpool on Wednesday. "We shall need a radically different method and style if the country is to heal and unify behind some proposed destination."

Without naming May, he said the country required "leadership which is far more honest in setting out the fundamental choices still ahead, the difficult trade-offs between sovereignty and national control".

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Since leaving the civil service, he has maintained a low profile, but has offered occasional scathing reviews of British political debate on Brexit in a series of lectures. In October he took aim at the "pinstriped Robespierres" of the anti-EU European Research Group, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg. He has also argued that British delusions and the EU's technocratic approach mean both sides risk "sleepwalking into a major crisis".

His latest lecture offers a stark warning about the democratic crisis that could result from a Brexit debate characterised by "evading and obfuscating choices". Eurosceptics advocating a no-deal Brexit, he said, were "lying openly" about the extent to which World Trade Organisation rules would provide a safety net.

○ Brexit: May returns to UK to face MPs after Brussels knockback

A new referendum won't heal the differences in British society, let alone at Westminster.

Global Warming - distance between America and Europe is steadily increasing.