The Observer view on the grim effects of Brexit being impossible to hide
When the British people narrowly voted to leave the EU in 2016, they did not give the government a mandate to wreck our economic and political relationship with Europe. When Boris Johnson won the general election in 2019, he was expected to forge workable new arrangements with the UK’s largest trading partner, not allow exporters to be strangled by red tape and ruinous extra costs. Nor was he given a green light to break legally binding promises.
When Johnson and his rightwing Leave campaign pals claimed to have “got Brexit done” on 31 January last year, they failed to say the patchwork agreement they signed had more holes in it than a Cumbrian coal mine. Johnson did not admit he had fudged crucial issues such as Northern Ireland’s borders, and sold out Britain’s fisheries, in order to claim a bogus victory.
Yet truth will out. Day by bleak day, the epic damage caused by this execrable deception, this shameful Conservative con, becomes ever more evident. No amount of Michael Gove spin can hide the facts. No amount of distortion of official statistics can conceal the harm. Feeble claims by David Frost, Brexit booster-in-chief, that Covid and EU hostility are to blame will not wash.
It’s clear where responsibility lies. And “lies” is the operative word.
Johnson and his team cannot dissemble away alarming figures showing UK exports of goods to the EU plunged by 40.7% in January, caused in large part by Brexit bureaucracy, incompetence and delays. That’s a £5.6bn loss when the economy can least afford it. Exports of food and live animals were particularly badly hit, down by 63.6%. Producers of fish and shellfish, who Johnson personally pledged to protect, saw their exports collapse by 83% year on year.
Adding insult to injury, reciprocal import checks and controls on the UK side will remain absent until next year, Downing Street now confirms. In truth, the government could no longer conceal its abject failure to install necessary border infrastructure and computer systems. In practice, this means that EU exporters to the UK get a free ride while UK business continues to be handicapped by mountains of paperwork – as agreed by Johnson.
When the Observer first reported a Road Haulage Association survey early last month that indicated huge falls in exports, it was met by a misleading barrage of official obfuscation. Gove, the minister responsible, was subsequently rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority for making unverifiable rebuttals based on unpublished data. Typically for this government, Gove has failed to apologise or set the record straight. Forgive us for asking how this only-too-real trade fiasco squares with Johnson’s claim to have taken back control of Britain’s borders? What does the fact that Britain is now the ultimate EU ruletaker tell us about his boasts to have restored sovereignty? One thing is certain: it’s a potential disaster for jobs, investment, consumer prices and the balance of payments. And, make no mistake, this is no temporary hitch.
It’s not due to stockpiling, or lack of Covid jabs, or bad weather, or any other dreamt-up excuse. It’s the result of a fatally flawed, misconceived Brexit deal that is not, and never was, fit for purpose. The EU defends its own interests – no surprise there. What is shocking is how Johnson has failed to defend Britain’s. We cannot go on blaming the organisation we left for the problems we face as a result of opting to leave on the most damaging terms possible. And it will get worse later in the year, when additional EU export regulations are due to come in.
The parallel debacle over Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements is, if anything, even more dismaying – and dangerous. Even after he broke his word to unionists by agreeing to a border in the Irish Sea, Johnson’s deal still cannot ensure frictionless, two-way trade while safeguarding the Good Friday peace agreement. It was always a botched job. Now, predictably, it is falling apart.
Yet what does our prime minister do? He shirks responsibility. He does not admit he misled the people of Northern Ireland and made promises to the EU that he never intended to honour. Instead, he tries to shift the legal goalposts, as he threatened last autumn by unilaterally suspending checks on goods imported from Great Britain for as long as he sees fit. It’s a blatant breach of the withdrawal agreement. But Johnson just does not care.
The EU does. It’s understandably furious over the government’s bad faith. Relations are now locked in a destructive downward spiral as the dispute heads to court. Once again, Johnson stands accused of dishonesty. Once again, old friends in Europe and the Joe Biden administration in the US wonder out loud whether Johnson’s Britain keeps its word. Once again, he has given succour to un-democratic foes in Russia and China.
Forget, for a minute, the dreadfully mangled, mismanaged morass that is Brexit. This is a question of trust as much as competence. It goes to the heart of the UK’s future international standing. It adversely affects hopes that “Global Britain” can successfully make its way as an independent power. The shaming truth is that just as the British people cannot trust Johnson to do the right thing, no more can the rest of the world.
Johnson’s biggest lie is now exposed for all to see. Brexit is not “done”. It’s not working. It’s not even Brexit.
EU exporters to the UK get a free ride while UK business continues to be handicapped by mountains of paperwork