Brexit common sense remains a victim of political fears, says Business Editor Ian McConnell.

He writes: “We must continue to hope that common sense will prevail over political fear on this hugely important matter.”

It was enormously frustrating to watch Labour continue to embrace the damage from the Conservatives’ hard Brexit through 2025.

We saw so much fuss last year over trade deals that are truly inconsequential relative to what the UK has lost with Brexit.

The much-trumpeted free trade deal with India, trade arrangements with the US, and agreement with the European Union to mitigate to a small extent the Brexit frictions – all are relatively inconsequential for sure. The EU agreement has the largest impact of the three but even this effect is tiny in the context of the hard Brexit damage.

Labour’s “red lines” of not rejoining the EU, single market or even the customs union mean the enormous toll on the UK economy from the loss of frictionless trade with the huge bloc and the ending of free movement of people between the UK and European Economic Area is set to continue indefinitely.

This is a huge drag on UK growth and grim for living standards which have been under so much pressure for so long now.

All of that said, and it is crucial to realise that the ongoing hard Brexit damage is absolutely the key point when it comes to Labour and its........

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