Ignore the doom-laden spin – Brexit is going remarkably well

Government chaos has led critics to believe our exit from the EU is a disaster, when the opposite is true

Strictly speaking, Britain is not allowed to hold trade talks with anyone until we have left the European Union. But no one in London or Washington wants to wait that long so, on Monday, talks to establish a free-trade agreement will begin. It’s a fairly historic moment: Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, will meet Liam Fox to discuss what American officials describe as “ways to strengthen trade and commercial ties”. To have this happen so soon is more than any Brexiteer dared predict. Rather than be at the back of the queue, as Barack Obama had rather absurdly threatened, Britain is sneaking to the front.

This fits a trend. Brazil is keen to start talks with Britain, as are Australia and Turkey. They might be bemused at the political mess in Westminster but they seek closer links to our economy, the fifth largest in the world. We have a newly competitive currency, fuelling demand for our goods and helping employment to an all-time high. There’s even a consensus about what Brexit should look like: a clean break with the EU, untying our hands to strike new alliances. The journey is bumpy, but the direction is clear.

So it’s hard to portray Brexit as being an unmitigated disaster. But a great many people are doing a rather good job of it. Their mistake is to look at the state of the Government and assume that the Brexit project is in the same dilapidated condition. Negotiations with the EU, which finished their second stage yesterday, were always going to be tortuous. Made more so, it’s true, by the implosion of the Prime Minister’s authority and the inability of anyone to make the case for Brexit. When critics carp, the Government is unable to respond.

Given the scale of this task, Theresa May ought to have assembled a Bletchley Park-style cadre of experts to work out every detail. Instead, the Government has relied on a still-traumatised Whitehall machine. I recently met one of the many civil servants deployed to Brexit and asked what it was, exactly, that he did. “I don’t know,” he replied, “that hasn’t been made clear to me yet.” The basic problem is that leadership has to come from the very top. And it’s not being applied.

Yet in spite of all this, public opinion remains remarkably firm – perhaps because, political tragicomedy aside, things have been going rather well. The country is as evenly split now as it was in last year’s referendum, with Brexit just about edging it. Which is perhaps understandable, given how many Brexit voters expected precisely this kind of disruption. They rejected the advice of academics, economists, actors and every political party in Westminster – it always was a vote for the long term, sure to cause havoc in the short term.

If anything, Brexit seems less of a risk now. HM Treasury’s dire predictions have proved, to put it politely, unduly pessimistic. A falling pound annoys holidaymakers, but has helped manufacturing increase every month since the referendum, while tourism spending is up 14 per cent and exports in general 16 per cent. Inflation has risen, but it now looks set to peak – having never risen above 3 per cent. In the great history of British inflation disasters, this will barely merit a mention.

And what about the talented EU nationals supposedly being chased away? A group of academics warned about this in a letter this week, but the latest figures show more Europeans working here than ever before. Mrs May has belatedly said she wants to offer them all permanent residency – and we should hope they accept. While Europe is wrestling with unemployment, Britain’s problem is a lack of workers – most companies now say they struggle to fill skilled vacancies. A problem, yes, but a problem born of success.

And that exodus of financial services? Yes, some of the banks are sending a few more staff to EU offices but, overall, the City of London is booming. The latest update from Morgan Mckinley found that the Brexit referendum prompted an 18 per cent hike in hiring, rather than a desertion. The dire state of the Westminster soap opera doesn’t alter a basic fact: London is the greatest financial centre in the world, ranking even above New York. The official league tables don’t show any EU city in the top 20.

And if bankers do go to Frankfurt, the EU might have some unpleasant surprises waiting. It recently published various plans for the future, including a financial transactions tax – the sort that Britain would never have tolerated. Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit representative, recently declared that the “only way for the EU is to develop itself into a federal Europe”. Once Britain would have been working out how to sabotage such agenda. Now, we can wish the EU good luck.

Those who have seen David Cameron recently say that he’s still very downbeat and can often be found in Dukes Bar in Mayfair, mournfully nursing its signature vodka martini. But he should not be so hard on himself. The EU is evidently heading on a federalist path that Britain could never have followed; Brexit would have happened sooner or later. The more the EU talks about greater integration, the wiser the Brexit vote seems. And this is true no matter how much of a mess the British Government might find itself in.

Fundamentally, Brexit is about the country, not the government. The US is keen to open trade talks not as a love letter to Theresa May but because it seeks closer links to an economy without threatening American jobs. The Prime Minister has made this case very well to the Trump administration: this is her personal success. She has also kept her nerve on Brexit and has not been tempted to make a false choice between “hard” or “soft” version. She has a strong hand to play because the country has so much to offer.

So there are two Brexit battles being fought: that of the spin, and that of the substance. The Government is losing the former, but slowly winning the latter. Better that, at least, than the other way around.