I’m suffering from a bad case of opposition envy. Perhaps you missed this only-recently- discovered malady, among all the new year detox supplements and guides “to a new you”. In which case, let me fill you in.

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Spool back to the early summer of 2016, when twin horrors loomed on the horizon: Brexit and Trump. I imagined back then the devil offering progressive types one wish: they could either have Britain stay in the European Union or see Donald Trump lose the US presidential election. But they could not have both. I wrote then that, forced to make that diabolical choice, I’d opt for a remain victory in the referendum. Though four years of Trump would be a nightmare, Brexit would haunt us for generations.

In the end, of course, Satan had the last laugh and we got saddled with both. But as I look across the Atlantic, I think my instinctive choice was probably right. Of course, it’s far too early to make predictions about 2020, and whether US voters will seize their chance to kick Trump out after four years. But what’s already clear is that the forces devoted to opposing America’s 2016 horror – Trump – are doing a better job than the forces opposing ours, Brexit.

For one thing, the anti-Trumpers have already won a public vote. On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi returned as speaker of the House of Representatives following Democratic victories last November. The mood was celebratory on Capitol Hill as newly elected Democrats took their seats, revelling in their diversity and plurality, with more women and people of colour than ever before.

Some Democrats are anxious about the year ahead, as more than 30 possible contenders for the party’s presidential nomination jostle and compete. But the coming contest could equally be viewed as proof of the party’s vigorous good health, with a deep bench of talent, whether older and experienced figures like Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, or younger and charismatic ones, such as Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke.

For now, though, the Democrats control one half of America’s lawmaking body, giving them the power to thwart, slow down and interrogate the Trump administration.On Friday, they unveiled a package of measures they called the For the People Act, which took aim at some of the more blatant Trumpian excesses, tightening lobbying rules and demanding presidential candidates release their tax returns. Now they chair House committees, Democrats will have the power to question, and subpoena the Trump inner circle, probing their way through the corruption allegations that surround this president. The most tangible form of opposition, however, is the one that’s led to the shutdown of about a quarter of the federal government, now entering its third week. For the funding tap to be turned back on, both Trump and Congress have to agree on spending bills – and Trump insists that they include $5bn for his wall on the Mexican border. The Democrats refuse to give him that money. (Besides, didn’t Trump promise that the Mexicans would pay for it?) They say the wall is wrong in principle and a spectacular waste of money – and they refuse to have any part of it.

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Now contrast all that with the situation in Britain. Does the opposition here say that the signature project of the May government – Brexit – is wrong in principle, and a spectacular waste of money? Does it refuse to have any part of it? No. Not even in the face of daily evidence that this is a similarly doomed venture. It could be Michael Gove, he of the 2016 leave campaign, warning that a no-deal crash-out from the EU on 29 March would lead to tariffs on beef and sheep meat of more than 40%. Or Chris Grayling, reassuring us that it’s fine to hand over £13.8m of taxpayers’ money to a ferry company with no ferries, even as Ramsgate begins emergency dredging to become once again a deeper-water port in a matter of weeks. Or Britain’s universities, in effect one of the country’s most successful exports, attracting the best and brightest from Europe and beyond, reporting a drop in take-up of places and warning that no-deal represents “one of the biggest threats” they’ve ever faced.

Despite all this, and the undeniable truth that Brexit has always been a project of the nationalist right – a fact of which we shall be vividly reminded by Channel 4’s Brexit drama on Monday night – Labour’s stance has been to hem and haw, to be a little bit leave and a little bit remain, as it maintains its awkward perch on the Brexit fence.

Never mind the data that shows Labour members overwhelmingly oppose Brexit, the party leader – who won the job by promising to listen to party members – told the Guardian before Christmas that even if Labour won a 2019 election, he would still go ahead with Brexit. This week Jeremy Corbyn disappointed those who would like to see Labour back a second referendum by appearing to add yet another stage in the much-vaunted sequence of moves that would lead him to call for a public vote – suggesting that if Theresa May’s deal is rejected in the Commons then that should be the cue for renegotiating a new deal with the EU, as if such a thing were possible before the crash-out deadline in nine weeks. “Most Labour MPs want someone to make a decision,” says one member of the shadow cabinet. “Leadership is about taking these decisions, and that of course has been lacking.”

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Imagine if Pelosi showed similarly tortured hesitation towards Trump and his wall, fearful of opposing it outright because, after all, Trump had won an election, thanks in part to his success in traditionally Democratic states. Yet that has been Labour’s position since 2016, terrified by those Labour seats that backed leave. It’s resulted in the absurdity of Labour policy being a “jobs-first Brexit”: you might as well call for a patients-first disease. There can’t be a jobs-first Brexit because every version of Brexit is worse for the economy and jobs than staying in the EU.

You don’t hear Democrats talking about a migrants-first wall, no matter how many former Democrats in Wisconsin or Michigan backed Trump. They know a wall is a bad idea, and they are opposing it with a clear voice. Just as they know that Trump is doing to the US what Brexit is doing to Britain: weakening the country and trashing its reputation abroad. They are in opposition and they are opposing – no ifs, no buts. Those who wish to be saved from the madness of Brexit can only gaze across the Atlantic – and look on with envy.

• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist