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I have been rereading Gove's 2016 speech on why the UK should vote to leave the EU. The outcome of any negotiation/political process should be judged by what was promised at the outset of the process. http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/assets-d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/voteleave/pages/271/attachments/original/1461057270/MGspeech194VERSION2.pdf
I do not for one minute believe that Gove was lying when he made this speech. He genuinely believed in what he was saying. He clearly believed that a vote for Brexit would lead to the disintegration of the EU as other countries followed the UK out. None did.
He believed that Brexit would have no adverse impact on UK/EU trade because the "German carmakers" would see to that, along with French wine producers and Italian fashion designers. The UK would hold "all the cards". The speech never once mentions the UK's services sector.
Now, it is true that the "German carmakers" did get the trade deal they wanted. Quota and tariff-free access to the UK market. But the UK got little in return as events over the past three weeks have shown. The totemic fishing industry appears to have been sold down La Manche.
What is clear from Gove's speech is that he had no real understanding of the economics of the customs union and the single market. He believed that, post-Brexit, trade would continue as before. The civil service would be able to iron out the minor glitches.
Implicit in Gove's speech is the belief that the UK would emerge as the leader of a post-EU Europe of free-trading nations, as well as, at pace, having cut trade deals with the US, India and China. None of this has happened and is not going to happen anytime soon.
Instead, industry after industry, service sector and service sector, find itself losing export markets in Europe with no new markets in sight to pick up the slack. Biden's US is not going to do a deal with "Trump lookalike" Johnson this year or next. Maybe never.
Instead of the Brexit "sunny uplands" the UK gov is offering to compensate industries for Brexit losses. After only three weeks of "real Brexit" as opposed to the "phoney Brexit" of 2016-2020. Reality, as opposed to Govian rhetoric, bites. There are no Brexit winners. Only losers
