As another year dawns, Brexit remains the issue that will just not go away for the UK.

Of course, so many Brexiters appear to have for so long now wanted it to disappear from public discourse.

This might surprise some, given the fervour with which the cause was promoted by a Brexit camp which told the electorate that everything was going to be wonderful afterwards, when all of the evidence was that the reality would be quite the opposite of what the Leavers were saying.

However, given that the reality of Brexit unfolded as predictably as night follows day, it was not surprising to see first former prime minister Boris Johnson and then his successor, Rishi Sunak, dial down the volume on Brexit.

Sadly, the Labour Government’s “red lines”, unless of course it decides to paint them out (which looks highly unlikely), mean we are stuck with the essence of the Tory hard Brexit.

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With Labour having ruled out rejoining the European Union, single market or even the customs union, the UK will remain deprived of the two huge twin benefits it had when it was a member of the EU. These were, of course, frictionless trade with the country’s largest trading partner and free movement of people between the UK and European Economic Area (EEA) countries.

So there looks to be little prospect of any significant mitigation of the huge ongoing damage to the UK economy and living standards from the Brexit nightmare.

That is not to say, however, that Brexit will........

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