Realistically that was never going to happen. We were never going to have steam catapults because a) where would we get the steam with no reactor (and no-one uses conventional steam turbines anymore) and b) steam catapults aren't reliable in arctic waters, which is why previous British and Russian carriers used ski-jumps. And we weren't going to have EMALS either because again, with no nuke where would we get the electrical power?

But the REAL reason is that British Aerospace is involved in the F35 programme and couldn't take the risk that we might shop elsewhere, say Dassault, so they fucked up the design entirely deliberately. Someone should be in jail for that, or at least lose their final-salary pension.