Is Brexit done yet?

I seem to remember the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’. Another one of Cummings? Back in 2019 we were promised by the Prime Minister that there was a plan, an amazing deal, that would get Brexit over the line and confine it to the annals of history. The last time I looked, the B word is still all over the papers and fills my social media feeds. That may be just me though.

It turns out that the fantastic ‘oven-ready’ plan, like so many of this government’s plans, was not worth the paper it was written on. We are now arguing with the European Union over the very agreement that our government agreed to sign, threatening to renege on an unworkable deal that only a short while ago was the best thing since sliced bread. 

I’ve been there before.

What I find most ironic, however, in a landscape deep in irony is the whole notion of sovereignty and taking back control. The mantra that leaving the European Union would free us from control of unelected bureaucrats, even though they were elected (which is why we had European Elections), only to find that the ‘negotiations’ on the United Kingdom side are being carried out by an unelected bureaucrat in David Frost

Having never faced the electorate he was appointed by the Prime Minister to the House of Lords and has acted as Minister of State at the Cabinet Office since 2021. In addition he has served as:

• Chief Negotiator of Task Force Europe 
• Chief Negotiator for Exiting the European Union 
• Prime Minister’s Europe Adviser 
• HM Ambassador to Denmark
• EU Director at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)
• Director for Europe and International Trade at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS)

I don’t doubt Frost’s credentials nor his impressive track record, though I do doubt the success of the approach to the Brexit negotiations. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that significant amounts of power and influence have been put in the hands of an unelected bureaucrat. 

Is Brexit done yet? Not by a long chalk.