When the UK left the EU on January 31 2020, Boris Johnson hailed “the dawn of a new era”. More than two years later, the UK is depleted, disrespected and discredited. It is a cautionary tale; a nation adrift and bereft where every political principle has been sacrificed on the altar of Brexit expediency by a government trying to keep disingenuous promises made by people who never really understood what they were pledging. Or if they did, they had their fingers firmly crossed behind their backs.
Johnson has said he has got Brexit done. But six years after the referendum, the UK is on the brink of a bruising legal battle with Brussels, if not a full-blown trade war, while the economy is grinding to a halt as wages stagnate, prices spiral, farmers and fishers despair, and small businesses throw in the towel, defeated by reams of red tape.
The UK is still in thrall to a Brexit vision that was always unworkable in its hardest form and to a one-trick-pony prime minister, devoid of any policy other than saving his own skin and repeating the mantra that he got Brexit done.
By refusing to acknowledge the truth – on Brexit and much else – Johnson has impaled himself on his own lie. He cannot address the manifold problems that still plague the country because to admit to these problems would be to admit that Brexit is not done or working. And so the naked emperor must continue to stride through the crowds, pretending not to hear the shocked gasps and cries of “shame”.
www.theneweuropean.co.uk/after-six-years-its-clear-to-all-brexit-was-a-very-bad-idea/
