Acknowledge the real cost of Brexit

THREE years after the UK left the EU and more than sixand-a-half years after a referendum determined such an outcome, Brexit remains a living presence in all of our lives.

The likelihood is that it will remain so for many years to come.

Those who voted for it believed it would improve life in Britain.

For some, the idea that all laws relating to the UK should be made in the UK had an allure that was more important than any material advantages that might accrue from Brexit.

Mostly, however, people who had endured years of austerity policies were persuaded that both they personally and the underfunded NHS would be better off outside the EU, which was portrayed as an unwieldy bureaucracy that swallowed British taxpayers’ money.

There is an abundance of evidence to show that the promises made by Leave campaigners have been broken.

Equally, it is becoming clearer as time passes that lasting damage is being done to the UK’s economy.

The estimate that £100bn per year is being lost because of Brexit is a statistic that most will find staggering.

And yet there is a reluctance on the part of those in the political class – or more particularly within the only two political parties that could realistically lead a government at Westminster – to accept that dealing with the lasting consequences of Brexit is the major challenge the UK faces.

We live in a state where the living standards of the vast majority are declining.

As a result, we have more industrial unrest than we have seen for decades together with an increase in poverty and a rise in inequality, with a tiny proportion of the population getting ever richer.

Failing to call out Brexit as the most significant element in the UK’s economic decline is a major error to which both the Labour and Conservative parties have succumbed.

It’s expecting too much of the current ruling party at Westminster to acknowledge the damage it has caused by inflicting Brexit on us, but it is deeply frustrating to see Labour falling into a similar trap.

Labour’s refusal to contemplate a return to the single market is reprehensible.

It is primarily motivated not by a determination to do what is best for the UK, but out of a wish to secure electoral advantage for itself.