The cabinet are apparently arguing (HERE) about the immigration bill which has been delayed until the end of the year, or even into 2019. Brexiteers see it all as a ploy to make leaving without a deal all but impossible. These are the ones that actually think this is still thinkable. It isn't. But the issue does point to all the myriad and interlocking problems that Brexit is creating. Because the immigration bill is delayed, the benefits bill must also be delayed while it's rewritten to take account of the absence of an immigration bill.
If the immigration bill isn't published until the end of the year, it will leave almost no time to get an act of parliament through before March 2019.
But even if we do get a deal this leaves very little time anyway. If the new Immigration act is passed by the middle of 2019 it leaves about eighteen months to get prepared. Will this be enough? I don't know but bear in mind that the government will be very busy with a lot of other serious issues. Not least a new customs regime, various new agencies, new border arrangements in Ireland, new air travel agreements, new fisheries and agricultural policies and implementation and just about new everything.
Not only has the government to get all of this through parliament, and often in the teeth of stubborn anti-Brexit resistance, it must work out how to get systems in place and inform businesses and the public of the changes and what if anything they need to do and how they will be affected.
At the moment the government is pushing all the work ahead of it, like a snow plough. Nothing is actually being done but the time is slipping by. Eventually the weight of work ahead will exceed the capacity of government to cope with it. At the very least it will be incredibly difficult, sucking up more and more resources as the deadline approaches, and full of pitfalls. There will come a time, probably in the middle of 2020 when you will be unable to see anything other than huge problems wherever you look. The government will be totally overwhelmed..
