28 December 2020

Brexit is no cause for celebration – this is a moment of national shame

We are turning our back on the noblest experiment in international collaboration the world has known.

A U.K. national flag hangs beside European Union (EU) flags flying outside the Berlaymont building in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020. Boris Johnson is heading into what may be the most important meal of his life: a dinner with the head of the European Commission in Brussels that could make or break a post-Brexit trade deal. Photographer: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The government’s spin machine did its best to portray the Christmas Eve Brexit deal as a triumph. Boris Johnson boasted of bringing “good tidings of great joy”. Michael Gove anticipated “a new more hopeful chapter in our history”. The UK’s chief negotiator David Frost spoke of “a moment of national renewal”. Downing Street’s mouthpiece – the Daily Express – hailed “Our New Golden Age”.

In truth the deal falls far short of what the Brexiteers promised. Rather than ensuring “frictionless trade” and “the exact same benefits” of European Union membership, it will erect barriers that did not previously exist. It will require the employment of more customs agents than all of Brussels’ reviled “Eurocrats” combined. It will do little for the service industries that comprise 80 per cent of our economy. It will certainly not generate a £350m-a-week bonus for the NHS. It is far worse than the arrangements we enjoyed as a member state.