Rebecca McQuillan: If politicians can't admit Brexit was a mistake how on earth can we fix it?

Here in the real world, Brexit damage looms over everything. The mess in Northern Ireland that has put the province in its most precarious position in 25 years, Britain’s economic woes, wrecked business relationships with Europe, the six-hour queues at Dover and the UK’s mutual hostility with Brussels, are all either partly or wholly caused by this massive and misguided policy decision.

But you might struggle to find a London-based politician who will say so robustly.

Indeed, the Tory leadership debate – which was meant to put honesty back at the heart of politics, remember – has been a surreal cheerleading contest for Brexit. Like the Emperor’s New Clothes, Truss and Sunak preen themselves over Britain’s departure from the EU, extolling its beauty and splendour, while the rest of us stare in disbelief from the sidelines at the embarrassing reality.

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Rishi Sunak has made much of his long-time support for Brexit, inviting us – incredibly – to see it as proof of his good judgment, but it’s Liz Truss who is the true strutting empress of Brexit. Never mind that in an unguarded show of rationality she campaigned hard for Remain six years ago, she has the religious fervour of the born again.

Truss says she has concluded “dozens of trade deals” for the UK since Brexit, omitting to mention that the overwhelming majority are rollover deals the UK had as part of the EU (so bring zero “Brexit gain”) or that the tiny few that are new, such as the deals with Australia and New Zealand, threaten to undermine the viability of struggling British farmers (the NFU’s view, not mine).

Truss also claims to have taken action to “sort out the issues in Northern Ireland” by pushing a bill through parliament giving the UK government the power unilaterally to rip up parts of the international treaty it signed. “Sorted it out”? With EU relations now worse than they have ever been and a trade conflict possible? The truth is that we are in a war of diplomatic attrition with Brussels and a lasting solution for Northern Ireland is as far out of reach as ever.

Perhaps the starkest illustration of the Tory candidates’ wilful Brexit delusion was when Sophie Raworth asked them on Monday night whether the queues passengers were experiencing outside Dover were due to Brexit. “No,” they both barked. Port of Dover boss Doug Bannister, strangely, didn’t agree. While the British government blamed understaffing on the French side, Bannister said it was “absolutely true” that Brexit was ultimately to blame because “in a post-Brexit environment… transaction times through the borders are going to take longer”. No kidding.

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One day, perhaps, we will rejoin the single market and customs union – even the EU itself. What a mistake it was not to take Theresa May’s deal keeping Britain in the customs union. But that’s unimaginable at present. There is a vacuum of truth in political discussions about Brexit at the highest levels.

A joint Resolution Foundation and London School of Economics study in June found that while there is no clear evidence of a narrow fall in exports to Europe from Britain compared to the rest of the world, imports had fallen. Brexit, they found, was making the British economy less open and would reduce productivity and wages in the years ahead. “Brexit has damaged Britain’s competitiveness and will make us poorer in the decade ahead,” was the stark summary.

The trade deal that came into effect in January last year led to what independent academic network UK in a Changing Europe calls “major disruption” of UK-EU trade, and a “sharp drop” in trading relationships between the EU and UK, with many UK firms ceasing exports to the EU.

The UK government’s independent economic adviser the Office of Budget Responsibility reiterates in its latest forecast that Brexit will reduce the UK’s long-term productivity by around four per cent.

It also notes that new trade deals like that with Australia will have no material impact on trade levels.

The IMF have just predicted that UK growth will be the lowest among G7 economies last year – no sign of a Brexit dividend there.

Brexit was also pushing up consumer prices long before the cost-of-living crisis, as more than one academic study has shown.

That’s a lot of harm.

It’s not just the Tories who are failing to engage with these realities: it’s Labour too. Keir Starmer has said little about Brexit since 2019, promising only to “make Brexit work” in more or less its current form (he has ruled out rejoining the customs union or single market). This may be understandable – he wants to avoid offending critical Leave voters and knows the Tories lie in wait for any excuse to accuse him of wanting to reverse Brexit – but his reticence means Tory misrepresentations of Brexit have been going largely unchallenged.

The pro-European Liberal Democrats point to the damage Brexit has done but even they are boxing clever. With Leave-voting Tory seats in their sights, Ed Davey hasn’t exactly been shouting from the rooftops about rejoining the single market, though it’s his official policy.

The SNP and Greens are much more comfortable criticising Brexit. This is unsurprising for Nicola Sturgeon’s party. While about a third of SNP backers voted Leave, she calculates that their commitment to independence trumps any discomfort they might have about rejoining the EU – which might, after all, never happen anyway. A pro-EU stance, meanwhile, will be essential to winning over soft No voters in a future independence referendum.

But the SNP are on the periphery of the debate currently dominating UK politics. It is dominated instead by parties who are reluctant to say what needs to be said: that Brexit has disadvantaged us. And if we can’t admit there’s a problem, there’s not much chance of fixing it.