May government’s Brexit aims were never achievable – we’ve been hunting a fantastical beast all along

The Brexit process started in March 2017 with the triggering of Article 50, allowing two years to complete the process. The main story since then has been of postponing difficult decisions in the hope that something would turn up. Ministers have insisted they have a mandate from the people but have struggled to agree on what it entails in practice. Negotiations within the UK government have been as difficult as those with the EU.

It might have been expected that, before March 2019, we would have a clear idea of what Brexit would look like. Instead, we have a 20-month “transition period”, which the UK government has been calling an “implementation” period. It is neither a transition nor an implementation phase, but the period in which the real negotiation of what Brexit means will take place; it can be extended once by agreement of both parties.