The key point about this is that, as at a generic level is true of every single regulatory decision, there is a trade-off between reward and risk. In this case, crudely, the reward is freeing up massive funds for much-needed investment and generating proceeds that benefit policyholders or pension scheme members. However, there’s also an argument that it wouldn’t make much difference to these rewards in practice. The risk is that holding fewer reserves and/or more risky investments could lead to insurance companies or pension schemes collapsing, destabilizing the financial system and damaging policyholders or pension scheme members (and probably, ultimately, taxpayers). Again, there’s also an argument that it wouldn’t make much difference to these risks in practice. Cummings’ own self-serving and obscenity-strewn testimony to the Inquiry, in both its written and, especially, its oral form, showed his utter contempt for ministers and civil servants, whilst in itself giving a glimpse of the bullying and misogynistic culture which, as confirmed by Helen MacNamara’s evidence, permeated the inner workings of the administration. MacNamara, the most senior female civil servant at the time, makes it clear that this culture was not just morally grotesque, but substantively and substantially impaired the quality of decision-making.

This also means that it is either completely dishonest or totally ignorant for Frost to say that there were “no new arrangements” to prepare for during the Covid crisis of 2020. There were. Whether or not there was to be a trade deal, it would mean completely different trading (and other) arrangements compared with being in the single market, customs union, and other EU entities, once the Transition Period was over. Which of these two outcomes would prevail was not known until Christmas Eve of 2020 and so, throughout the year, there was the prospect of at least major change, and possibly of major disruption, to be prepared for. That was as true for businesses and other organizations affected as it was for the government.Secondly, it distracts from and discredits the genuine criticisms and concerns about Freeports. These include issues of economic effectiveness, governance and accountability, value for money, planning laxity, tax evasion, and corruption. It’s absolutely necessary to monitor these and also to monitor whether government promises are kept that no environmental or labour standards will be reduced, whether within Freeports or more widely. None of this is aided by nonsensical claims about Charter Cities. One is that because some of those who are pro-Brexit are also advocates of Charter Cities, and those who advocate Charter Cities are mainly pro-Brexit, then, ‘therefore’, the secret agenda behind Brexit is the creation of Charter Cities in post-Brexit Britain. That is not simply about moving from Brexit to a wider right-wing agenda. As their pet political scientist Matt Goodwin illustrated this week, the Brexitists want to claim that the referendum was not just a vote to leave the EU but a vote to permanently end what he calls ‘Liberal Centrist Dad politics’. Absurd as this claim is – that wasn’t the question asked, so it can’t be claimed to be what the answer meant – it is important to understand how widespread it is. Thus similar claims this week were made by populist commentator Isabel Oakeshott and by Miriam Cates, co-Chair of the ‘New Conservatives’ group of Tory MPs. It enables Brexitists to dishonestly pretend that the referendum gave them a democratic licence for far more than leaving the EU. So they use it as if it were a permanent majority for their entire ideology, even though, as the last seven years have made clear, it was not even a permanent majority for Brexit, and was never a majority for any particular form of Brexit. The more the UK approaches each of these issues as discrete policy questions in their own right, rather than via support for or opposition to Brexit, the more politics will have been ‘de-Brexitified’. If we get to that point, then we will be at the end of the chapter which, arguably, we are now just starting with the adoption of the Windsor Framework. Brexit will be less toxic and simply less ‘present’, something also aided by the passing of time and, with that, of the leading Brexiters and many leave voters.

It would be quite absurd for Brexiters to support Solvency II reform simply because Brexit makes it possible, irrespective of its merits. Doing so won’t make Brexit more successful or secure. Conversely, it would be absurd for anti-Brexiters to oppose Solvency II reform, regardless of its merits, simply because it was made possible by Brexit. Doing so won’t make Brexit more of a failure or re-joining more likely. As to whether Solvency II reform turns out to be successful, that will depend on whether the assessment of the risk-reward balance turns out to be right or not, something which will probably take years to know and which will be down to things which are nothing to do with Brexit, and in itself will neither vindicate nor discredit Brexit. Moreover, Frost fails to mention that, until July 2020, the UK had the possibility of seeking to extend the Transition Period, something which the EU would almost certainly have agreed. Doing so would have helped the UK to deal with Covid, by taking away the urgency of the negotiations and the imminency of the changes that the end of the transition would bring. It would also have helped the UK to deal with Brexit, by deferring completion of the trade deal until the exigencies of the Covid emergency were over. For although the focus of attention arising from the Hallett hearings is how Brexit got in the way of dealing with Covid, it is equally the case that Covid got in the way of dealing with Brexit. For Frost to use the Transition Period as a defence against there having been such mutual impacts whilst ignoring his government’s refusal to extend the period, which would have reduced or contained them, is absurd. The issue about the economic studies is simply that, as the BCG report itself states in relation to trade, although without attempting to quantify it, “Brexit has undoubtedly had a significant impact”. Quantification is useful in estimating the extent of that impact but, fundamentally, the point is that whatever other factors are in play, in a world where economic growth is hard to find, Britain, uniquely, has chosen to make it significantly harder by the addition of Brexit to these other factors. For another way to contextualize the magnitude of estimates of lost GDP growth, such as the NIESR figure of 2.5% for 2023, is to compare them with the latest OBR forecasts of what GDP growth will be: 0.6% (2023), 0.7% (2024), 1.4% (2025). The BCG report also rightly highlights that the impact of Brexit has varied between sectors, identifying pharmaceutical and automotive industries as amongst those where Brexit “is likely to have been a major factor in reducing trade”. Perhaps the most important distinction to be drawn is between large and very large businesses, on the one hand, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the other. The reasons are fairly obvious. Larger firms had the resources to plan for and implement the changes that Brexit brought, and were often more likely to already be familiar with procedures for trading outside the single market. It gave us the bitter referendum that was supposed to resolve matters. It gave us Brexit which, apart from everything else that could be said about it, manifestly intensified divisions within the Tory Party and smeared them to every corner of the polity. Yet, at the same time, which makes the whole thing an even bigger tragedy, it failed to satisfy the Brexiters. It has degraded our international reputation, permanently crippled our economy, toxified our entire political discourse – and, still, they want more. Still, they want the ever-elusive ‘true Brexit’. Still, they want the ever-elusive ‘true Conservatism’.

The first of these propositions is a conspiracy theory, pure and simple. Like most conspiracy theories it touches on some realities, but then distorts or falsely extrapolates from them. Sometimes, the profiles in the EM report are painful to read, as with that of Carol, who ran a niche bridal lingerie business in Devon. The last line is “Brexit was the final nail in the coffin of the business” (p. 12). Or that of Darren, who ran a specialist motorsport vehicle engineering firm in Cornwall and Essex. His profile concludes “our business is finished” (p. 17). These are affecting, personal stories of individual dreams shattered, whilst at the same time implicitly telling of damage to whole families and to local communities, often in ‘left-behind areas’. The reticence was scarcely surprising, though. In making a statement putting heavy emphasis on the need to boost business investment, Jeremy Hunt could hardly mention that, just the day before, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England had told the Commons Treasury Select Committee that the decision to leave the EU had “chilled business investment” ever since the referendum. Nor, in putting heavy emphasis on the need for economic growth, was he likely to refer to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecast from April 2023 that Brexit will cause UK GDP to be 4% a year lower than it would otherwise have been by 2035, even though that forecast was explicitly left unchanged in its analysis accompanying this Autumn Statement. Even if passing the Windsor Framework has broken the Brexit fever as regards government policy, it will also serve to re-enforce and perhaps grow the poisonous reservoir of Brexit betrayalism within British Conservatism in its wider sense. That matters not so much in terms of Brexit policy but the rag-bag of populist causes with which Brexit has become bound up. Those causes have their adherents amongst the Tories, of course, with Lee Anderson and Jacob Rees-Mogg being obvious examples, but also within the Reform Party and the very powerful media and social media nexus that promotes Conservative populism.

For the Tories, the embarrassment is the result of having been the architects of Brexit. For Labour, it is because, otherwise, they would be forced to explain why they don’t propose to seek to reverse it, even to the extent of seeking single market membership. The political reasons for that, both domestic and as regards the EU, are understandable and, in my view, justifiable. But, whether justifiable or not, they don’t change the basic fact that the country is accepting – or being forced to accept – that, year after year, it is going to get poorer and poorer than it would otherwise have been.Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the EU divided the nation, unleashing years of political turmoil. Today, many remain unreconciled to Brexit whilst, in a tragic irony, some of those most committed to it are angry and dissatisfied with what was delivered. In practice, it isn’t actually clear that these new Freeports will differ in any significant way from those allowed under EU law. The Government claims the UK Freeports will allow more subsidies to business than as an EU member, but the evidence for that is disputed. Apart from that, the new Freeports differ from those the UK used to have in two main ways, but neither of them required Brexit.