Britains most senior diplomat at the european union, sir ivan rogers, has resigned just months before he was due to play an Important Role in the complex negotiations on the uks exit from the eu. Sir ivan faced criticism last month when it emerged that hed warned the Prime Minister that securing a Post Brexit Trade Deal could take a decade. Tonight the bbc has obtained his Resignation Email to his staff in which he urged them to continue to speak truth to those in power and urged them to challenge muddled thinking about brexit. More on that in a moment but first heres our political correspondent, carole walker. Behind the darkened windows, at the Prime Ministers side, as she arrived at last months eu summit, sir ivan rogers tried to keep a low profile. But his warning that it could take the uk ten years to get a new eu trade deal overshadowed what was already a difficult occasion for theresa may. He was criticised for being too pessimistic, though Downing Street said he was just relayi
Good evening and welcome to bbc news. Britains most senior diplomat at the european union, sir ivan rogers, has resigned just months before he was due to play an Important Role in the complex negotiations on the uks exit from the eu. Sir ivan faced criticism last month when it emerged that hed warned the Prime Minister that securing a post brexit trade deal could take a decade. Tonight the bbc has obtained his Resignation E Mail to his staff in which he urged them to continue to speak the truth to those in power and to challenge Muddled Thinking and ill founded arguments. We can speak to our Political Correspondent tom bateman. We got a bit of a sense of why sir ivan resigned from the e mail. It sounds as if he was just hacked off . It was pages e mail that he sent to his team in brussels, quite a lot to say. On one level this is an e mail from our boss to his team saying, it was great working with you, that it went on to say a sense in which he wa nts went on to say a sense in which h