Cambridge spies and Brexiters have a lot in common

theguardian.com:

The chaos caused by Brexit is here for all but the most pigheaded Brexiters to see. Why, no less a figure than the minister for Brexit “opportunities”, one Jacob Rees-Mogg, finds himself having to delay further implementation of customs bureaucracy because of the damage even he can see in front of him. Bringing in full checks the government had agreed in order “to get Brexit done” would, said Rees-Mogg, have been “an act of self-harm”, adding an extra £1bn to the already enormous cost of Brexit. No, I am not making this up.

There was another priceless example of what a nonsensical government we have when Conor Burns, the minister of state for Northern Ireland, appeared on Channel 4 News last Wednesday.

Holding a vast pile of documentation given to him in despair by a road haulier, he complained that this was the kind of form-filling lorry drivers had to cope with to qualify for entry from Brexit Britain to Northern Ireland.

The minister seemed blissfully unaware that the bundle of bumf he was displaying was the consequence of his own government’s Brexit policies. Like the Democratic Unionist party, he was complaining about the Northern Ireland protocol, the arrangement negotiated by Boris Johnson under which border controls were introduced between England and Northern Ireland, because the latter remains, with the republic of Ireland, in the single market, and Great Britain, owing to Brexit, does not.

Johnson’s attempts to go back, in the case of Northern Ireland, on yet another of his words may be in the domestic and international news; but businesses all over the country are also struggling with the excessive form-filling and extra costs of the Brexit trade war that this government has inflicted on itself.

To take just one