Much is happening, but almost nothing is happening. As the White House collapses through a domino line of interpersonal conflicts, so too the UK government is paralysed by divisions at the top over Brexit. Perhaps this is always what happens when a nation votes for something terrible. The ruling party is beset with divisions over everything form chlorine-washed chicken in future US trade deals to the form and duration of a transitional deal with the EU. There is just so, so much we haven’t considered. The study of divinity may ultimately prove to be a less complicated subject than Brexit, but Archbishop Welby isn’t alone in thinking that the chance of it taking place by March 2019 is "infinitesimally small." The result of the unknowable complexity of Brexit? Many who voted for it seem perhaps to have adopted leaving as a faith, rather than as a rational concept. How else can we explain polling showing that 39 per cent of Leave voters would be happy to see a family member lose their job to ensure Brexit? They’d be happy to inflict economic misery on their loved ones for the sake of something that nobody can truly claim to understand.

The problem of Brexit is too large for any one person to grasp, and only now are we starting to appreciate this. In Game Of Thrones, Tyrion Lannister says of the inability to accept the threat posed by the menacing White Walkers that "people's minds aren't made for problems that large." From abattoirs to restaurants, clothes designers to cotton mills, and whisky to windmills, the European Union is inextricably linked to every part of our daily lives in ways we cannot comprehend. In order not to be isolated, the notional elements of control we regain will have to be re-surrendered to do deals with people like the jokers in the White House. There’s a risk we’ll abandon our food and animal welfare rules just to have people to trade with, swamping our supermarkets with hormone-pumped beef, creating a race to the bottom in food standards. Are Leavers alarmed by this? It doesn’t seem so. 61 per cent of them would be happy with significant damage to the UK economy to ensure Brexit. Either our departure from the EU is an article of faith worth years of self-flagellation, worth all the pain now for heaven in the world thereafter or they simply don’t believe that any of this will happen.

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If Leavers don’t believe the warnings, it’s because they’ve been trained to ignore them. The worst elements in the Brexit debate have taken to describing each piece of potential bad news as no more than a “desperate attempt by Remainers to force us into staying in the EU.” Of course anything and everything can be undermined as fearmongering once you've fatally undermined the importance of objective facts. Most people didn’t really vote for £350 million a week for the NHS, or to stop 76 million Turkish people coming to the UK. They voted for the unknowable concept of “control.” They swallowed or ignored the lies packaged around the central proposition that their lives could somehow be better. Unfortunately, by the time an economic slow-down bites, many will either fail or refuse to realise that it is the consequence of our decision to Brexit. People are losing tangible, meaningful economic control over their lives in the form of buying power and economic independence for the sake of a concept that will never put food on their tables. If a slowdown does happen, expect it to be blamed on a failure to implement Brexit properly, rather than Brexit itself. So unwilling to be wrong, the majority of Leave voters are prepared to sacrifice their country’s economy and the jobs of their loved ones, just so long as they get their prize.

We’ve reached a sad, painful place when Leave supporters would happily inflict pain and misery just to get their way

The way that the patriotism of anyone who dares to question the wisdom of Brexit is attacked is evidence that good arguments for the Brexit we are getting are few and far between. Why, then, are opponents of this project not more prominent? One significant reason is that Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters – sensing power – are deluding themselves into ignoring a position which is as bad, possibly worse, than the government’s. Commentators turn a blind eye to Corbyn’s historic and total failure on Brexit in order to garner favour with his followers. On the right, the issue of Brexit is linked to the Conservative Party’s survival as the party of government: a failure to implement it may split the right for decades. Many on the left are seeking power over principle, and on the right putting party before country.

We’ve reached a sad, painful place when Leave supporters would happily inflict pain and misery just to get their way. We were denied a rational argument about the benefits of leaving the EU, and while we are starting to get the detail of what our departure might mean, it’s too often dismissed as a plot to stop the project. Good people on the left and the right stay silent to advance their ambitions within parties that slavishly pursue an idea which cannot possibly satisfy more than a fraction of the people who voted for it. In these circumstances, the country desperately needs more heretics. We’re truly lost if we cannot explain the folly of wanting a thing even if it causes significant economic damage and joblessness. For what? A theological proposition, because nobody can honestly explain what the post-Brexit future will look like. To go back to Tyrion Lannister: “Of course it’s a joke, just not a very funny one.”

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