An excellent & succinct summary of the failure of leadership, politics & good governance that has got the UK into the mess it is in today. There were good & bad ways to deliver #Brexit, & we seem to have found the very worse. https://twitter.com/Cardwell_PJ/status/1316002916273197056

The list of poor decisions can appear endless, with each pushing the UK down an increasingly difficult path that required increasingly talented leaders in charge to manage it.

Unfortunately, as the task become progressively more difficult, those put in charge at manage it and lead became progressively less capable.

The roots of the leave vote go back a long way, but the story of poor leadership & absent preparation starts with Cameron.

He was a gambler, & far too complacent following the 2014, indy ref victory. He learnt the wrong lesson, believing that project fear won the day, & failed to recognise the importance of Lab getting their vote out in support of union.

He also made the extraordinary decision of banning the civil service from preparing for the possibility of Leave winning the ref.

Consequently, no admin prep was done before the decision to leave, or consideration given to how we might manage departure, or comprehensive advice provided to Ministers on the many complications that wld arise once the process of leaving began. All this was done after the event.

This might not have been fatal had govt. not decided to rush into triggering Art. 50. Here, a combination of May not feeling fully confident that she was a legitimate leader (she won by default), and Brexiteers desperation to begin the process as quickly as poss...

...so as to avoid any risk of the country changing its mind, lead to the catastrophic decision to trigger Art 50 before govt. had decided what it wanted from the negotiation, or built any consensus for its vision for the future of the UK.

This decision to trigger Art. 50 before any prep had been done was the equivalent of letting the train leave the station before all the track was laid.

That train is now speeding toward an unknown destination, while govt. desperately tries to throw tracks down in front of it. It is impossible for it to keep pace, the train will derail, it's just a matter of when.