If you formulate a grand project or strategy in most lines of business, you have to prove that the project will result in tangible, quantifiable benefits (and lots of them) to even be considered for funding. You don’t get to start the project on the basis that “the benefits will be defined later”.
Today’s news that the UK government intends to hire a consultant or similar to investigate the benefits of Brexit is a massive Tell. Brexit as a project has been underway for 5+ years (47 years, if you count the entry to the EEC, after which time there were always people in the UK claiming that the UK should leave). And the government is still looking for the benefits?
This is additional proof that Brexit was a project and a strategy which, as implemented by the UK, has no quantifiable nett upside or positive value for the UK. If there was a quantifiable upside it would have been possible to articulate it before Brexit occurred, defend it, and then realize it when Brexit occurred. None of those conditions were met. The UK entered Brexit with no coherent strategy, spend years arguing with itself and the EU, ended the process with a poor deal, and is now desperately looking for the fig-leaf marked “Benefits”. Best of luck with that.
