The decline of the Brexit empire

Like the fall of the Roman Empire, the fall of Brexit will not be swift. Things will get a little more shitty with each passing year.

Predictions of chaos might have helped the hiding of the declide, by predicting queues of truch stretching from Dover to Birmingham if delays per vehicle were increaded from 70 to 80 seconds meant that this is what we were expecting.

Instead, the opposite is true.

Although there were queues almost every day before Christmas along the M20 and A20, since then there has been little freight traffic. I check the traffic radar eachnight before Jools leaves the office, and there is nothing. Yet. This might be because week 1 is the quetest of the year and maybe next week there might be more traffic, but maybe not a huge increase.

Freight needs paperwork to clear before the vehicle leaves the warehouse, meaning that there is no queues. There are some, and I saw pictures on Twitter showing miles of trucks at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, but so far that is not being reported.

If freight is not coming to the UK, there should be shortages. It will be fresh fruit and vegetables, mainly, so when we go shopping in the morning, we shall see. Agaian I have seen Tweets showing empty shelves in London and Scotand, but until we go, I can't say how it is here in Dover.

Brexiteers are worried. There is no clear benefit yet of Brexit, and with the enhanced checks coming in on imported goods this year, and they will get more draconian as the year goes on, shortages and low freight levels can be expected. What will people think then?

Brexit was a promise to change everything and yet nothing changes. To leave the EU SM and CU and nothing change in the way we trade. In fact, the only change would be for the better.

No more about benefits, other than some in the far off future, while today, the percentage of the population that thinks Brexit has gone well is down to 15%. THis has been unchanged in months, and soon will become the bleieved fact, and what history will remember.

Maybe there are those in the headbangers who really believe Brexit will be a triumph, but more and more of them are saying "this isn't the Brexit I voted for", and those in the ERG seem to think that if only negotiations were done differenty or harder. Only, Frost did negotiate hard, or has done since the end of the transition period, and nothing of any import changed.

Other than he resigned, resigned to the sidelines to moan about how bad its going and could be done differently. A bit rich fromt he man who negotiated and agreed to the WA, NIP and TCA.

There will be no rejoining the EU any time soon, and the byelection result in Shopshire shows how a Leave supporting area can quickly turn on the party that delivered it, especially if they think its going badly. It would be nice f the country were to start to come together, which will be hard as we remoaners were told to suck it up as we lost. But we are more likely to tell the Leavers to suck it up, you won.

The next few weeks and months will be interesting. There may be shortages, they might not be. But it'll never be dull.