Tories are wondering what happened to the Brexit they promised

Tories are wondering what happened to the Brexit they promised

Excuse me, this isn’t the Brexit I ordered.” Like a diner sending back the house red for not being a vintage claret, leading Conservatives are complaining that their flagship policy does not meet expectations.

This unhappiness was best articulated by cabinet minister and chief Brexit negotiator Lord Frost in his pre-Christmas cabinet resignation. Lamenting the “current direction of travel”, Frost complained that Boris Johnson is resiling from the dream of “a lightly regulated, low-tax, entrepreneurial economy, at the cutting edge of modern science and economic change”. 

Other economic liberals voice similar concerns. Iain Duncan Smith, former Tory leader and co-author of a report for Downing Street on potential post-Brexit reforms, wroterecently: “we have yet to see the Government seize this opportunity” of moving from the “EU’s deeply risk-averse precautionary principle to . . a proportionality principle”.

With personal and corporate tax rises just introduced, ministers pledging not to scale back employment rights and an increasing role for the state, the buccaneering post-Brexit vision of a low-tax, low-regulation UK seems more remote than ever. So long Singapore-on-Thames, hello Sweden.

Instead, ministers are left scrabbling around for totemic but inconsequential measures like restoring the crown stamp on beer glasses. Brexit was meant to be the shock