Surprisingly though it may be to some of my readers I have never been that bothered about Brexit. I even voted Remain – not on the strength of the economic arguments, which I thought fairly evenly balanced – but because I could see the danger in precipitating the break-up of the European Union: that it might lead to the drift back eastwards of former Soviet bloc countries. But once the decision was made I was very happy that it be executed, so long as it be in an economically liberal way and done properly; not leaving us stuck in some halfway house where we are bound to EU rules, bound to its trade policy, paying into its coffers and yet without a hand on the tiller.
That is the very prospect we face now as the attrition between the government, the Lords and Conservative Remainers in the Commons threatens to suck us into some gloopy fudge, a worst-of-all-worlds in which we will be following EU rules, paying EU dues but having no say and no influence in what those rules will be.
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