Brexit Unfolded: How no one got what they wanted (and why they were never going to)

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It seems such a silly piece of fluff designed either to trigger remainer jeers or leaver cheers, and so it’s better not to rise to the bait.

Whether or not those things are true doesn’t adequately acknowledge that, as a collective entity, our country chose to leave, and so it’s like saying some version of ‘it was Vennells’ fault’ in relation to the Post Office scandal. This will apply in various ways both to EU firms sending the exports and to the UK firms receiving them. That’s not to dismiss some of the good work the IMA has done, including winning a court case against the Home Office in 2022 on one aspect of EUSS’s functioning.With his exquisitely lucid analysis, Chris Grey does something no politician has so far achieved – he makes sense of the messy contradictions and frustrations of Brexit. As with most Brexit stories, there is much which is obscure and convoluted, starting with whether pints of champagne were ever on sale and if so when. And what of David Maddox, Political Editor of the rabidly pro-Brexit Express, who this week penned possibly the most dotty commentary on the Post Office scandal so far, opining that: “the real big picture story here is that this was once again an example of the establishment circling in to protect and reward itself while dumping from a great height on the little ordinary people – aka the decent hard-working folk who keep this country ticking over. This important book is not just a historical record – it is a vital foundation for anyone trying to work out how Britain can move forward. But running our own affairs must mean, at a minimum, that the reality of those affairs can be openly and honestly discussed.

For those who may be interested, I have written an expanded explanation of this point which was originally going to be part of this post but for reasons of length and focus I have posted it separately. As with Britain’s economic problems, that dishonesty isn’t solely the result of Brexit but Brexit created a tipping point, embedding dishonesty to an extent from which it seems almost impossible to recover. That same report shows how the government does not even have a consistent or logical approach, so that, having dropped the general requirement on UK firms to adopt the UKCA mark rather than continuing to use CE, the construction sector is still supposed to do so by 2025. In fact, the most extensive coverage of it here was in the sole guest-authored post, written by Monique Hawkins (now Interim Co-CEO of the3million) in December 2018.

The latest trade figures show that the percentage of UK trade done with the EU is now higher than before the referendum, at about 53. It becomes very easy for Brexiters to dismiss all the damage they have caused if their opponents make false or exaggerated claims about it.