Tom Harwood: Brexit isn’t a policy prescription, it is a repatriation of powers

Now I want to read you some opening lines from a recent newspaper article.

“Ships wait off the coast, unable to unload their cargo.”

“Truckers are overworked and overwhelmed, often confronting logjams.”

“Rail yards have also been clogged, with trains at one point backed up 25 miles outside a key facility.”

“Consumers are confronting higher prices and shortages of cars, children’s shoes and exercise gear as the holiday shopping season looms.”

Is this Brexit Britain?

No, these are the opening lines to a Washington Post article entitled ‘Inside America’s Broken Supply Chain’.

The leading article is illustrated with tail backed lorry parks, clogged ports, and worries about shortages this Christmas.

Why do I point to this? Not because everything that happens in the United Kingdom is rosy, or that there are no issues with our relationship with the European Union.

What I want to try to do is break the binary Brexit mindset – where everything, absolutely everything for good or ill is either caused by Brexit or despite Brexit.

Whisper it, but not everything that has happened since June 2016 has been to do with the United Kingdom’s gradual withdrawal from a regional political union.

There have been some other, arguably far larger geopolitical events.

Seeing every traffic jam in the world as a consequence of Brexit, or indeed believing such traffic jams only occur in Britain is an awfully parochial way to view the world.

Now this isn’t be banging the drum for Brexit, just requesting a heavy dose of realism is added to our national conversation.

And, to offer a balanced view: here’s cautious reminder that the potential benefits of Brexit are just that – potential.

Brexit isn’t a policy prescription, it is a repatriation of powers that allows our elected politicians to choose from a wider array of policy levers.

Whether or not they scrap useless EU regulation, unilaterally drop tariffs, or choose to offer more visas or not… is down to our elected politicians. The act of leaving the EU empowers this country to make its own decisions. It does not set in stone what those decisions must be.

But to return to the original point, lots of countries face challenges. As the Washington Post continued to write, “Fallout from the pandemic is the chief culprit behind soaring freight bills and delivery delays.”

These are issues that affect every country.

It’s how we choose to rise to these issues that that will really mark us out.