Time to deliver on Brexit’s potential

Time to deliver on Brexit’s potential

More than two years after the UK left the European Union few, if any, of the benefits of Brexit have been realised. The deal tied Britain to previously agreed laws to make continued trade with the bloc easier to maintain. A separate protocol affecting Northern Ireland kept the province connected to the single market but created a border with Great Britain down the Irish Sea. These were always going to be problematic areas, to say the least, and the wisdom of signing the agreement on this basis in 2019 was questioned at the time but helped win Boris Johnson a majority at the election that year. It is possible that many of the difficulties would have been resolved by now had it not been for the pandemic hitting within weeks of Brexit. Dealing with Covid has eaten up the political and economic capital of the EU and the UK, making sensible mutually-advantageous decision-making impossible to achieve. But with the pandemic over, the time has now come to set out a coherent post-Brexit strategy for the country that addresses all these issues. The first opportunity comes today with the Queen’s Speech , sadly not to be delivered by Her Majesty. We