A straight contradiction of what Ministers have said. It was of course widely believed that the UK did not join this procurement because of policy to distance ourselves as far as possible from the EU. But that was never said. This ought to be a big issue.
One month on I stand by this 100%. Judged by their actions Brexit comes ahead of tackling coronavirus in terms of this government's priorities.
Just what is all this nonsense supposed to be achieving for the government? Because at the moment it looks like a really bad attempt at an explanation.
*we're really confident in our decision to have as little as possible to do with the EU*
*but not so confident that we're actually prepared to say that*
*but not so confident that we're actually prepared to say that*
For this to be true the Permanent Secretary of the FCO must have either not understood the question he was being asked or not been fully briefed, and rather than then choosing to not answer instead decided to make up a different story. Likelihood? 
