It's very hard to overstate the absolutely colossal mess the government is making of Brexit. The people have given the government a task that may well prove insuperable. Brexit may have seemed easy in 2016 - I seem to remember Sir Bill Cash MP saying it would be simple - but the overwhelming scale of the difficulties becomes clearer by the day.
The Conservative party, supposedly the party of business, is already at loggerheads with the CBI who want to remain in the customs union and now the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) have weighed in, pleading for clarity. In an open letter to the government, they say the patience of even the future-oriented companies (read pro-Brexit) is wearing thin (HERE). Remember the BCC was formerly headed up by John Longworth who is mentioned regularly on this blog.
Sky News (HERE) say, "the call for greater clarity [by the BCC] on the Government's Brexit plans came as a group of MPs expressed concerns about the allocation of skills and resources across Whitehall to deal with Britain's departure from the EU:
"In a new report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found 'allocation processes have been too slow' in beefing up Government departments for Brexit, as they urged the Department for Exiting the EU to 'pick up the pace'".
And the deputy chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said: "It is one thing to identify the amount of work required to deliver Brexit. It is quite another to do it.
"The Government has identified over 300 work streams to complete as a consequence of the UK's departure from the EU - a byzantinely complicated task with the potential to become a damaging and unmanageable muddle. It is concerning that Government departments still have so far to go to put their plans into practice."
A Government spokesman, in response to the BCC letter came out with the usual cake and eat it mantra, "The Prime Minister has set out a clear ambition for a deep and special partnership with the EU and we are confident of securing an implementation period that will provide businesses with certainty." We have not even cleared the stage of thinking we can have our cake and eat it too. There is no urgency whatsoever.
The prime minister's ambition is not that clear. Mrs Merkel's close associate Manfred Weber says Germany still has no idea what Mrs May actually wants (HERE).
I imagine some of those Brexiteers now in government, people like Davis and Johnson, long for the halcyon days before the vote when they could swan around the country telling a lot of sympathetic audiences how easy it was all going to be. How German industry would force the EU to give us all we wanted, that things would carry on as before but without those awful immigrants and Britain bestriding the world like trading colossus.
Now the government is under pressure from all sides as the whole Brexit edifice threatens to collapse. The EU are increasingly strengthened and the latest guidelines for the transition phase show who is really in charge. Frustration is growing in the business community. Parliament itself is finding its feet at last. Pro-Remain groups are finally coming together under Chukka Umuna. Legal cases rumble along threatening to derail what little strategy the government has and the Conservative party is in danger of an uncontrolled detonation at any moment. Last year, just before the election was as good as it was ever going to get for Mrs May and the Brexiteers.
The long hard slog to achieve Brexit is wearing them and the public down. Opinion polls are showing a gradual drift from supporting Brexit, towards believing the decision to leave was the wrong one.
According to Sir Simon Fraser, former permanent under secretary at the Foreign Office, foreign leaders think Britain has "lost the plot" (HERE) and I'm really not surprised. It isn't just foreign leaders. We all do.
