‘Westminster parties take vow of silence on issue that broke Britain’

Desperation on the high street has never been so obvious. The reason? Need you ask. In an identity parade – Covid, mental health epidemic, poverty trap – the culprit stands out head and shoulders: Brexit. Its laws, regulations and restrictions have had a universally pernicious effect on businesses small and large.

Without an army of workers from Europe to take up seasonal and full-time jobs, many outfits are toiling. Opening hours and services are reduced and, in the worst cases, shutters closed forever.

Brexit has exacerbated staff shortages in numerous sectors (Image: free)

An optician interviewed by the BBC spoke of people sent to him by the Job Centre who admitted they did not want the post and were only attending the interview to prevent their benefits being cut. Consequently, unable to find the employees he needs, he can no longer run a six-day service.

From Devizes to Dingwall, people are smarting because of the consequences of Brexit. With its effects felt from fishing to financial services, all of us are poorer, and our children’s and grandchildren’s horizons are narrower.

Red tape has crippled some businesses, and others now can’t afford the cost, time or hassle of trading with Europe. NHS performance in certain areas has suffered thanks to staff shortages, and the care system is in crisis, with countless jobs unfilled. The same is true of hospitality and tourism, while some farmers say they cannot harvest their crops for lack of pickers, and must watch them rot.

Meanwhile, educational and work opportunities that once opened Europe to younger generations have all but disappeared. It may lie just across the Channel, but Europe is now less accessible than America or Australia.

By the same measure, ex-pats feel abandoned. For many of them, this general election offers the chance to register their protest. Much of what is wrong with Britain at present can be traced to Brexit’s door, yet politicians campaigning ahead of the election scarcely if ever mention it. You’d think it had never happened. Given the significant and in some cases devastating impact it has had on almost any industry, trade or profession you care to name, this omerta is inexplicable and indefensible. Faintly sinister too, with its echoes of Soviet-era airbrushing.

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Admittedly, in the past week Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that, if elected, Labour will try to improve certain aspects of the UK’s trade deal with the EU. Though little more than tinkering, it is better than nothing. This apart, however, there is a collective case of amnesia. Perhaps denial is a better description.

This being the first general election since Brexit legally came into force in January 2020, you would think it was vital to have conversations about what it has cost the country and what to do about it. Yet even to address this – let alone raise the possibility of returning or renegotiating our relationship - is seen as opening Pandora’s Box. Terrified of the demons that might fly out, no party can handle going there. Or almost none.

There has never been starker evidence of what is wrong with the union than Brexit. We voted against it, and yet it was foisted on us regardless. John Swinney is quite right to talk about Scotland, under independence, negotiating our return to Europe. For some, that is inducement enough to vote SNP.

I understand the reasons for the surge of red wall Brexit-voting Tory seats in the 2019 election, and the hopes many had of Making Britain Great Again. Yet are people in these constituencies in a better position today? It seems not. If they were hurting before, they are in an even worse place now. Disgracefully, David Cameron’s government held the referendum to silence party in-fighting, and in so doing led Britain out of Europe like a sleepwalker stepping off a balcony. To this day I cannot forgive the manipulative, mendacious tactics of the Leave campaign, and the Remain camp’s complacent and ineffectual arguments for us to stay.

Nor is Labour blameless. Indeed, you could say it is equally culpable. Jeremy Corbyn was so vague he left his followers adrift in a cloud of unknowing. Arguably that was even more reprehensible that the gung-ho Brexiteers, whose cynical populist strategy was pathetically transparent. While the Tories try to defend the outcome, Labour has ever since danced around the subject as if it were a cobra.

What is the country’s biggest problem area today? The NHS. Yet there’s no sign of the promised weekly £350m bonanza emblazoned on the side of the Leave Bus. And what is the most pressing issue for millions in this election? Immigration, which the Tories promised to get under control but has, under their watch, rocketed.

A Brexit supporter (Image: free)

As international tensions mount, and the world becomes increasingly belligerent, we are outsiders in Europe, no longer part of discussions within the tent. Yes, it was admirable that Boris Johnson swiftly pledged our support for Ukraine, but how much better if this had been in concert with our European partners.

Now, when the climate emergency should be topping every other political consideration, we are making trading deals with nations on the other side of the world. Just at the point when every litre of fossil fuel used in transportation counts against our net zero goals, the air miles of goods coming through Customs will be eye-watering.

No wonder there is a steadily growing clamour to consider returning to Europe. Where that will go is anybody’s guess, but a rerun of the referendum seems highly unlikely. Not knowing how things would fall out a second time around, none of our leaders wants the country convulsed yet again. For the moment, all we can say with certainty is that Brexit was a terrible, terrible mistake.

Come election day, the Conservatives and Labour should be punished for it.