What is the point of Brexit if its freedoms are violated?

Five hours, Covid queues at passport control, empty supermarket shelves, mountainous bureaucracy when trading with Europe, steep increases in taxes on businesses and individuals, including – unforgivably – marginal tax rates by 50% among some of the relatively young when factoring in student loan repayments, another sticky plaster solution to rising health and social care costs, more well-paid bureaucrats to “manage” the extra expenses, a seeming helplessness in the face of a new wave of illegal immigration – welcome to “world Britain”.

It has always been a vague concept, but the past 18 months of chaotic hoof politics are not at all what we expected from Brexit, with its ‘take back control’ message. The liberation of the dead hand of Brussels was the promise; instead, we seem to have left the EU not in order to diverge materially, but only to become more and more like them. Besides its distaste for the EU, Boris Johnson’s government seems virtually indistinguishable from the social democratic mindset that dominates much of the continent. Even his response to Covid almost exactly mirrors that of the EU as a whole.

Whether or not Brexit was successful was still vitally dependent on what was done with its freedoms. Lower taxes and more flexible regulation were part of that calculation, at least when it comes to the economic opportunities of Brexit. But aside from a small token gesture on data and financial regulation, we’ve so far had the opposite – a growing tax burden and a deluge of red tape.
A business leader who was a supporter of the Leave campaign tells me he is positively embarrassed by the mess politicians have made of Brexit as Britain’s reclaimed sovereignty is increasingly poor and incompetent.

As it is now quite clear, the deal on trade and future relations with the EU was a terrible deal for Britain which imposes multiple barriers to trade and seriously undermined the integrity of union with Northern Ireland.

It is also clear that David Frost, the minister responsible for leading relations with the EU, is not the right person for the job. Whatever its other merits, a confrontational style has made it nearly impossible to achieve a compromise that would allow things to work relatively normally again, as is the case with other countries where Britain benefits from ‘free trade agreements. The job should be to defuse differences, restore confidence and smooth things over; instead, Frost has a knack for igniting them further, thus encouraging the EU’s infuriating habit of improperly interpreting rules and treaties in a legalistic manner. Border deals could easily be made, but ideology stands in the way.

I have no doubt that to some extent this is deliberate on the part of the UK. Politically, it is easier to create an intransigent bogeyman who can be blamed for disappointments than it is to indulge in the compromises necessary for a mutually beneficial resolution. But with many small and medium-sized businesses abandoning trade with Europe in desperation, this is hardly an approach to keep the economy running.

As for the government’s new immigration policy, it is clearly not working either. There is perhaps little that Priti Patel, the Minister of the Interior, can do without the cooperation of the French on the now daily flotilla of canoes crossing the Channel; the latest plan – pushing the boats back into French waters – seems utterly impractical, and the EU’s thinking further confirms Britain’s caricature as a pirate nation.

Still, there are issues she can act on, but seemingly fails to do so – appalling lines at passport control among them. What kind of message does the government think these wait times are sending to the outside world? Not a country “open for business”, that’s for sure.

The “pingdemic” is supposed to be over and therefore can no longer be used as an excuse for understaffing at key entry points or the inability to cope with the ruinous and expensive infrastructure of electronic gates. Why has the control of the papers now necessary to return to our country not been digitized more completely to allow smoother passage?

Wait times may be a temporary issue with Covid, but they don’t bode well for the future of travel inside and outside Britain. No wonder travelers from Red List countries are still forced to self-quarantine; being forced like cattle into the passport rooms of Heathrow’s super-spreaders increases your risk of infection.

There are a lot of potential gains to be made from Brexit, but the government seems uniquely determined to waste its new sovereignty on a poorly thought out Labor political agenda, often incompetently implemented.

The Prime Minister is right; a global pandemic was not on anyone’s manifesto. Responding to them consumed virtually all of the government’s bandwidth. Still, there is a bewildering sense of drift about the way things are going. While ministers have ever had a clue of what they intended to do with Brexit, they seem to have completely forgotten about it.