While the UK is squabbling over Brexit, the problems that predate the referendum are festering.
Take Northern Ireland: the border may be the defining issue in Brexit talks, but the country has been without a government for more than two years, leaving the economy and the peace process in suspended animation. While Brexit is not the cause of the political impasse, it takes up an enormous amount of political breathing space and has upset the balance of power (given the Democratic Unionist Party’s support for the minority UK government).
At the funeral of murdered Belfast journalist Lyra McKee this week, a priest asked why it has taken the killing of a 29-year-old woman to bring the political parties in Northern Ireland back to the table for talks. Twenty-one years after the Good Friday peace deal was signed, unionists and nationalist still disagree on emotive issues like flags, parades and the legal status of the Irish language. Brexit is just one more item to add to that list, one that Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald says has “bewitched” politicians both sides of the border and hindered peace talks.
Scotland is another case in point. Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon told BBC radio on Friday that the “Brexit juggernaut” has taken over lawmaking, and that “there is no non-Brexit policy programme in the UK”. So she has begun preparations for a second Scottish independence referendum, which in her view could help reclaim the “influence" Scotland has lost during the Brexit talks.
Brexit has also stymied proper economic and social planning. While Britain has been spared a recession - employment is at an all-time high and GDP growth is slow but still positive -chancellor Philip Hammond said this week that investment was “significantly” lower. Investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates that Brexit has cost the British economy around 700 million euros a week since the June 2016 referendum, or around 2.5pc of GDP.
Climate protests have ramped up, in line with the Europe-wide movement inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. The ‘Extinction Rebellion’ group has been blockading entire areas of London over the last 10 days, calling attention to what it says is an environmental “emergency”.
And Westminster has been obsessed this week with a national security leak, following a Daily Telegraph story that some cabinet ministers are against Chinese mobile giant Huawei having a stake in building the UK’s 5G mobile network.
But this doesn’t mean Brexit has gone away.
Talks between the government and the Labour party are still going on, though they are not going well. There is no clarity on if or when any changes will be made to the Brexit deal that can then be put to another vote - which means it’s almost certain the UK will be taking part in European elections on 23 May. And that could prove a substantial upset for the EU, with a new Brexit Party on the political fringes.
A political vacuum is a dangerous thing, but a Brexit vacuum could be even worse. (Sarah Collins)