Brexit pantomime likely to continue even after UK election this week

SINCE the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, the country has had three prime ministers and three missed Brexit deadlines.

If the opinion polls have it right, this week's election will put an end to all that dithering. If he wins, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservatives promise to get Brexit done by the last provisional date of Jan 31, 2020. Even so, it is far from clear that he can get the next phase completed as quickly.

The next phase is, of course, the other cliff edge at the end of 2020 - the deadline to thrash out a trade deal with the EU. Britain will stay aligned to European trade rules in the interim. The conventional wisdom is that the next stage will be easy - the two sides will quickly agree to a free trade deal. As has been pointed out, although there was much goodwill on all sides, the Canada-EU trade deal took seven long years - and it did not even include trade in services.