2018: the year that exposed the Brexit fantasies on all sides

When the tide goes out, you see who’s swimming naked. So says Warren Buffett, the folksy billionaire investor, explaining that tough times expose which firms have poor management. The same is true of politics, and especially Brexit.

2018 was the year the tide went out on Brexit, and we saw too many of our politicians’ failings exposed in all their shrivelled glory.

The tide was, like all tides, predictable. As we neared the end of the two year Article 50 period, the outline of a potential exit deal had to emerge, and that deal would show that, contrary to fantasy, the EU holds the better hand of cards in this game. Any agreement to leave the EU was always going to involve compromises, decisions to accept something less than what you hoped for. That’s what happens in international negotiations of any sort, of course.

The fact that the EU played its cards quite well was less predictable: I confess to being slightly surprised at how well the unity of the EU27 has held over the course of 2018.