How much of a distraction was Brexit from pandemic preparations? - Yorkshire Post Letters

Brexit came up surprisingly quickly at the start of the marathon Covid-19 public inquiry.

One inquiry lawyer, you report (June 15), believes the Government probably wasn’t “very well prepared” for the pandemic because attention was on our departure from the European Union.

Another says work was “substantially paused in 2018”: “The extent to which Brexit-related preparation and planning consumed the attention of all four Governments in the UK from 2017 cannot be underestimated.”

Yet excuses are still being made for Boris Johnson and his Ministers. Here’s an example from our group’s Twitter account: “We didn’t know and there was no way of knowing what was about to be unleashed from China.”

Maybe not the details. But a global pandemic at some point was predicted.

And, even after Covid-19 had emerged, the Government could have – but didn’t - redirect resources back to tackling it. We could have extended our EU transition agreement for a further two years. Remember the “one crisis at a time” slogan?

Boris Johnson chose instead to barrel along with Brexit regardless and insist talks continue with Brussels against the backdrop of this global health crisis. You must wonder to what extent that crazy decision explains what a terrible, poorly negotiated deal he ended up getting for Britain.

Seven years ago, during the referendum campaign, many put their faith in Boris Johnson – or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt. With him having now quit in disgrace as an MP and judged by the Privileges Committee guilty of “repeated contempts” of Parliament and being “deliberately disingenuous”, there’ll be many fewer.

International opinion of Britain will probably improve now he’s gone. But to benefit from that, leaders in all main political parties must talk more about undoing the damage he’s caused and rebuilding relations with our allies.