Let me clear up a third and final point about Brexit: Brexit was not a policy. It was a principle. All the time I hear people on both sides of the argument say things like. "Brexit hasn't been delivered" or "we had no idea what Brexit would look like in 2016". Both attitudes demonstrate a mistaken belief that Brexit was a policy, or even a bundle of policies like we are used to seeing in an election manifesto. This is understandable given the amount of things that were said during the referendum regarding what COULD be possible after Brexit. But no. Brexit wasn't a policy in that sense. Properly understood, Brexit was a decision. A decision based on a principle. That principle being that political power and accountability should reside in Westminster, and should therefore be returned there. That decision did lead to all sorts of "matters arising" from that decision. We did have to change and refresh all sorts of policies and laws as a result, but Brexit in and of itself was not a policy. Yes it meant we had hard choices to make. Yes it meant we had to actually start governing ourselves. But this is just a case of us returning to our normal, default position. The fact that we had to negotiate a difficult trade relationship, fishing deal and everything else is totally unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. Look around the world right now and you will see countries not in the EU having to do exactly this. There will be trade disputes, fishing disputes. This is all perfectly normal for a sovereign country. The confusion, I think, comes from the fact we are used to having policy proposals promised at an election, and to some extent having them delivered in the following Parliament. But the referendum wasn't a general election. Its main campaign groups (Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave) were not governments-in-waiting. They were therefore not entitled to make any promises on behalf of the then Cameron government. They were certainly not entitled to make any promises on any governments which came after that, as to have done so would violate the fundamental principle that no Parliament may bind its successor. All we were able to do is offer a vision of what COULD happen after Brexit. But what could happen was actually very broad. There are left wing visions of Brexit as well as right wing visions. Brexit wasn't just a vote about what would happen over the next few years either. It was a decision about our entire future. It was therefore impossible to say what Brexit would look like in, say, 15 years. This is the proper understanding of Brexit. How could we know what Brexit might look like 10 years from now? Who among us can predict the future? You see, Brexit wasn't about prescribing a specific policy and locking it in. As I have explained in my previous posts, that's what the EU does. It locks policies and laws in and gives member states very little ability to change course. We voted in 2016 to reject that way of doing politics. Brexit was about giving our Parliament and our governments the freedom and flexibility to respond to our needs and wishes. This naturally means there will be many different versions of Brexit unfolding over time. It may even mean we oscillate between closeness and distance from the EU. So long as we never formally rejoin and providing that we retain the right to ultimately do what we want, this is all legitimate. Perhaps we should actually now dispense with the word Brexit. It may now be a confusion and a hindrance. Perhaps we should simply return to the phrase "free and sovereign country".