The refusal in early November by the new Italian government to allow a ship with 500 illegal immigrants on board to dock at an Italian port underlines the importance of Brexit in the still continuing task for the United Kingdom of reclaiming sovereignty from the European Union.

The European Commission was critical of Italy’s stance and the French government denounced its conduct as ‘unacceptable behaviour’. The Italians responded that Italy had already accepted 90,000 migrants this year and could have added that they are on the frontline for illegal immigrants from North Africa in a way that most members of the European Union are not.

France’s own solution to this problem is to allow many of the illegal immigrants who arrive in that country to cross the English Channel to the UK. Already this year almost 40,000 have made this journey in small boats, mostly young males who then make a claim for asylum when they reach the UK. They are not of course the victims of persecution in their countries of origin but economic migrants. In addition to those coming from North Africa, some 12,000 of those reaching the UK this year came from Albania where no one is persecuted for political or any other reasons as far as anyone can see. All this is occurring in the context of the UK’s program of legal migration that runs to almost a quarter of a million people a year. But what those crossing the Channel know is that, once they land on the other side, they can almost never be deported.

Their determination to leave France and reach the UK no doubt indicates the difference between the social security systems of the two countries.

Despite having formally left the EU, Britain is still not able to make its own decisions as to how to deal with this seemingly intractable problem. When it devised a plan earlier this year to process asylum-seekers in Rwanda, immigration lawyers brought proceedings against the British government in the European Court of Human Rights which granted an injunction to stop any deportations to Rwanda. Why Britain, after leaving the EU, can still be subject to a court in Strasbourg is something of a mystery but it indicates that there is an issue of sovereignty that is still alive.

This is also true in relation to the so-called Northern Ireland protocol that requires customs control on British goods when entering Northern Ireland to ensure that they comply with EU standards. This process is designed to prevent any non-complying products finding their way to the Irish Republic which has a border with Northern Ireland but is part of the EU. This arrangement has paralysed the government of Northern Ireland because those parties that are opposed to the protocol have boycotted the parliamentary process so that no new government could be formed after the last election.

This is only one instance of how Brexit continues to cast a long shadow over British politics at both the domestic and the international level. It needs to be remembered that almost every element of the British establishment was opposed to Brexit and would still like to reverse it – the civil service, the media, the judiciary, the business sector, the literary world, the Labour party and even a sizeable proportion of Conservative members of parliament. In addition, the EU bureaucrats at Brussels and many of their colleagues in EU member countries have never forgiven Britain for what they regarded as an enormous insult.

It is true that Boris Johnson was a volatile character who would have always attracted controversy as prime minister but he would never have been pursued by his opponents and by the media with the same ferocity if he had not been the architect of Brexit. The Downing Street drinks during periods of lockdown hardly seems an issue on which to bring down a prime minister.

As for his successor, Liz Truss, her economic proposals can obviously be the subject of argument, although the planned subsidies for energy consumers only reflected what was occurring in most European countries. But it was the reaction of EU finance ministers, still smarting from Brexit, that was telling. They could scarcely conceal their glee as the British pound continued to fall under pressure from the markets. Former vice president of the European Central Bank, Vitor Constancio, summed up this delight: ‘Since Brexit, the UK has shown a lot of hubris and denying reality, as if it was going back to greatness in the days of empire. It’s delusional’. Even the International Monetary Fund weighed in with criticism of Truss’ plans despite its normal refusal to comment on the economic policies of individual member countries.

The French have been particularly bitter on the subject of Brexit. In 2021 their Minister for European Affairs said about Britain: ‘Stop telling us you do not need us anymore, stop being obsessed with us, stop believing we will solve your problems. They made a mess of Brexit, it’s their choice and their failure, not ours’. And earlier in the same year president Macron complained: ‘The Brexit campaign was made up of lies, exaggerations and simplifications. We must remember at every moment what lies can lead to in our democracies’.

All this reflects the fact that Brexit was one of the most extraordinary events in modern history. It occurred in the teeth of opposition of almost all the forces of power and influence in Britain and the EU bureaucracy in Brussels. It is very rare in recent times that the electorate in any country has been able to take a decision that is opposed by these kinds of groups. What is evident, however, is that that decision is still not accepted by many of those who opposed it and that the battle is far from over. If the Labour party takes office after the next election in Britain, there will be enormous pressure on it to reverse Brexit at least in substance if not in form. The notion of national sovereignty is strongly resisted by the globalist citizens of everywhere.