It will be six years in June since 51.9% of votes were in favour of the UK pulling out of the European Union. I wonder if the referendum, which was legally non-binding but the government of the time promised to implement the result, was repeated that the result would be the same. I seriously doubt it.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has spent the past few weeks claiming that “Brexit is done” and will no doubt now double down on that having reached a post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland, which has been one of the main stumbling blocks in actually getting Brexit done. The trouble is that not everyone likes it. The DUP, for example, has for a year boycotted Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government over its opposition to the post-Brexit trade rules, which effectively leaves the province in the EU’s single market for goods and means it has to follow some of the bloc’s rules. The new deal may well have got through parliament this week, but does that mean anything if the DUP still refuse to back it?
And while all this has been going on, what is clear is that Brexit has not lived up to its billing.
Nothing positive appears to have come from it. In fact it has just caused a host of problems for British businesses and individuals, whether they live in the UK or the EU, such as expats in Spain.
Just take a look at all the paperwork involved with going on holiday. Passports need to comply with new rules, there is the 90-day rule which many people have to juggle with, there is the wealth tax and soon the visa to enter the EU, while the number of illegal immigrants heading to the UK has doubled. Brexit is done? I don’t think so.