Brexit isn’t working, and there are potholes everywhere. Those are not equivalent challenges. Fresh asphalt heals cracked carriageways in an afternoon. Repairing a fractured continental alliance is the work of a generation. One problem did not cause the other. But they are on the vast continuum of political failure – from global to local – that coincides with 14 years of Conservative rule and for which the party will be punished in local elections on Thursday.
Also this week new customs checks on a range of EU imports are being implemented, throwing a bit more sand in the gears of trade. The measure has been deferred multiple times, and is now being only partially rolled out. The government has held back in tacit recognition that the economic impact is only downside: bureaucracy, queues, disrupted supplies, feeding into higher prices.
