How did we get into this Brexit mess? Why is it proving so difficult to leave the EU? Was it Theresa May’s botched 2017 election, which vaporised her Commons majority? Or perhaps her general incompetence and lack of vision?
How about the fierce determination of Europhile civil servants to save stupid Leave voters from themselves, cooking up a half-in-half-out withdrawal guaranteed to split the Tories?
Maybe it was the cynical ambivalence of HM’s Opposition, with Labour simultaneously backing both Brexit and a second referendum, having always intended to cause chaos and spark a general election by voting down the UK’s exit, contradicting its own manifesto? Then there’s the relentless big business lobbying, with corporate vested interests determined to keep Britain behind the EU’s protectionist wall and smaller rivals ensnared in Brussels’s red tape.
I’d say all of the above. While the case for being outside the EU still stands, the process of Brexit has been crippled by a combination of home-grown shortcomings: weak leadership, venal party politics, anti–democratic mandarins and an overwhelmingly Remain-supporting media class.
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