Question Time audience ‘We haven’t started Brexit yet – when’s it going to start?’
Andrew Neil has issued a gloomy warning that Britain faces a “lost decade” over Brexit.
The broadcaster said there were three “wasted” years under Theresa May following the 2016 referendum, before Boris Johnson took over.
Mr Neil said the Government then failed to capitalise on Brexit while dealing with the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The journalist admitted Brexiteers can “still take heart from some achievements which would have been harder or impossible inside the EU”.
He pointed to the successful vaccine rollout, the UK’s leading role in supporting war-torn Kyiv, new trade deals, the Aukus nuclear submarine project with Australia and the US, and the agreement with the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) bumper Indo-Pacific trade bloc.
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But Mr Neil predicted that “those still harbouring the Brexit faith are in for slim pickings for the rest of the decade”.
The journalist said neither the Conservatives nor Labour “want to talk” about Brexit.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s “heart is not in concocting a radical Brexit Britain agenda”, while a Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer is “even less likely to do anything to capitalise on Brexit”, he said.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Mr Neil said: “So whoever wins the next election, it will not produce a government committed to making the most of Brexit.
“A dynamic digital economy. Low, competitive taxes for individuals and business. Light-touch regulation of new technologies.
“A robust welfare-to-work programme to tackle poverty and labour shortages. The reskilling of our people for the digital age.
“All that is probably easier to achieve outside than inside a sclerotic EU. But nobody is offering it. As a result, when it comes to Brexit, we face a lost decade.”
It comes after the UK marked the seventh anniversary of the Brexit referendum last Friday.
A poll of hundreds of people on a special episode of BBC Question Time found 70 per cent still agreed Brexit was the right thing to do.
Meanwhile, Brexit architect Nigel Farage warned the “battle for Brexit” is far from over in a message to Express readers.
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