A perverse consensus is emerging in British politics that simultaneously accepts and denies that Brexit has failed. The prime minister and the leader of the opposition are both shopping for European policy in the narrow aisle between economic grasp of the problem and political fear of the remedy.
No one likes the status quo. Enthusiasts for Boris Johnson’s deal lament that its terms have been diluted and its spirit betrayed. Betrayal was always part of the plan, but it was supposed to be Brexiters defiantly flouting their treaty commitments to Brussels, not a Tory prime minister quietly reassembling functional relations.
