Of course, we didn't leave without a deal and we never could have. I think we can all now see why. It was quite impossible and Johnson had to sell a bad deal as a triumph, which is perhaps the only reason Brussels thought a Johnson premiership might be better than May's. He duly obliged.
But, despite agreeing a deal, Lord now claims that the policy of blocking HGV drivers coming from the EU to work is "insane."
“It strikes me as being insane that despite the fact that everyone knows that we desperately need drivers, the Home Office are still preventing people coming to this country to work as drivers,” he told LBC. “I think there’s an enormous difference between having control over your immigration system, which I think we should have, and running that system well, which I’m not sure that we are.”
The point he makes about 'control over immigration' is one that appealed to a lot of the racist element in the Brexit campaign but it was always surprising to me to see businessmen supporting it too. Essentially, companies are sub-contracting their recruitment to central government which then decides who they can and cannot employ.
The idea of the government 'taking back control' means that ministers and civil servants set out the criteria and once set, it becomes very difficult to change. Lord Wolfson thinks that there is a difference between having control over immigration and having a system that works and is responsive to business. He's right. But it is not a difference that can ever be resolved.
When a business is facing problems in recruiting staff, it wants the problem solving quickly. The government has known for years there is a shortage of lorry drivers but did nothing to overcome it. Industry resolved it by recruiting from the EU or using EU companies to make up the shortfall. Brexit has closed off that avenue without putting anything in place to avoid the shortage.
Today, it's lorry drivers and fruit pickers. Tomorrow, it might be some other occupations. But the time between the problem becoming apparent and the government offering some help might, and almost certainly will, be years. Wolfson might get his problem solved - eventually - but others will not be so lucky.
If you have recruitment issues in a market and they can't be resolved, the answer is to move to a market where you face no such limitation. The EU will I am sure be happy to help you relocate.
What is even more surprising for a 'captain of industry' is that he cannot see that Brexit has exacerbated a problem that we were just about able to manage:
He was reluctant to blame Brexit. Wolfson said: “I personally don’t think that’s the problem with Brexit, I think it’s the problem with the way in which our immigration system is being run.”
But Brexit led inevitably to our new immigration system, the two things are inseparable.
He was a Brexiteer and I assume supported leaving the SM and the CU. But it was the single market that gave us unfettered and unlimited access to the four freedoms - otherwise known as the four resources - of goods, services, capital and labour.
Now the resources are controlled sparingly by ministers who have no idea what every company in every industry wants or needs at any given time. But this is what the free marketeers wanted isn't it?
