It's been four years since the Brexit vote: everything and nothing has changed
It's starts with the expected line:
the rupture promises to be far more severe than many observers expected at the time.
But there are a few signs that might be 'balance', or it it just an unfortunate 2-sided metaphor?
the process has underlined the validity of the longstanding Eurosceptic claim that the EU, as Douglas Hurd once put it, had inveigled its way into the nooks and crannies of national life. And like an invasive creeper, its removal is causing damage. In both Northern Ireland and Scotland, Brexit is undermining devolution settlements
More fears:
One result has been the absolute primacy of politics over other considerations [assumed to be bad?] . Boris Johnson’s government seems committed not only to get Brexit done, but to do so in a way consistent with the UK “taking back control” of its money, laws and borders....Consequently, even should a trade deal be agreed with the EU, it will be a relatively “thin” one
Better 'balance', or maybe the usual Boris-bashing, or even a struggle for a suitable ideological line with this, after pointing out the conspicuous lack of action to 'level up':
Four years of promises have, to date, led to little in the way of meaningful action. Now Brexit at last is “done”, it is time for the government to deliver
But my favourite bit of history rewriting is this
the Brexiters were wrong to claim that leaving would be easy. Of course, the difficulties sprang partly from failures of political leadership and a parliament too divided to make up its own mind. Yet the National Audit Office claimed that by March 2020 there were roughly 27,500 civil servants working on Brexit. That even the British civil service, long feted as perhaps the most effective administration inside the EU, should have struggled with the task is telling.
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