The worst thing about Brexit is that it will never end

The parliamentary circus surrounding the "meaningful vote" has confirmed the long-held suspicion that Brexit has become farce. There are fundamental splits between the government and parliament, between the prime minister and her cabinet and, most worrying of all, between the propositions coming from London and Brussels. As Article 50 nears its conclusion this is obviously deeply concerning.

Faced with such confusion I have heard some in Westminster try a new tactic to console themselves. This period of turbulence is grim, their thinking runs, but at least it is temporary. It's a tempting thought, isn't it? So long as we hold on just a little longer, grit our teeth and bear it, it will all be over. Britain will leave and there will be a political recalibration. Government attention will gradually refocus on the everyday job of running the country.

Tempting, but naïve. This brings us to the most daunting Brexit problem of all.

I have sympathy with their line of thinking but the truth is that leaving the European Union is a constitutional task so immense, so intricate, that it may never fully draw to a close. It is consoling to think that one day it will end but there is little evidence to support this. It could drag on indefinitely, eating up decades of British political life. This is the consequence of negotiation with a global superpower.

Of course, the timeframe has already slipped. The original plan, as far-fetched as it sounds now, was to have a new arrangement all sewn up by March next year, but in December we struck a deal for a two-year transition because we are not going to be ready. The scheduled end for this transition is the end of 2020 but no one expects the deadline will be met; the Centre for European Reform is among the institutions predicting a far longer holding period.

There is of course no guarantee the end of this transition will be the end of exit proper. If policy blanks remain—and Britain has form on this—then we will enter another halfway house. Discussion over recent days has centred on the "backstop": alignment with some EU rules until a solution to the Irish border is found. There is no hard time limit on this mechanism, despite the best efforts of the Brexit Secretary.

There is a growing suspicion among some Brexit watchers that Britain could wind up beached in this state, never breaking out of the European framework. The alternative, that a genuine "future relationship" is reached through a new free-trade agreement, is possible. But would either option bring an end to the talks?

I am sceptical, for there will always be something else to negotiate. One government will decide it wants better access to the single market at the cost of increased budget payments, only for another administration to prioritise reclaiming those payments. We will have to decide how involved we want to be in new developments on the continent. Successive governments will fight to secure better terms. The decision made on 23^rdJune 2016 will have opened a huge geopolitical can of worms.

There is a precedent for this. Another country on the periphery of the EU which occupies a half in, half out state: Switzerland. As trade expert Sam Lowe explains: "The UK, like Switzerland, will find itself negotiating something or other with the superpower on its doorstep long after the ink has dried on the withdrawal agreement.” He's right: the bloc is simply too big and too close for us to ever ignore. This is the reality of being a mid-sized power on the edge of a market of 500m people.

“Since the signing of its first free trade agreement with the EU in 1972,” Lowe confirms, “Switzerland has entered into a permanent state of negotiation.”

And there's the rub. The years will roll on and still Britain will be sending teams of trade negotiators to Brussels. Still the tabloids will be demanding that governments stand up to Europe. The bitter rows between Remainers and Leavers will continue to rage, and our politics will begin to feel very tired indeed.

But the process will not be done, and really the surprise is that anyone should be surprised. Consider the timescale for other government projects: the Institute for Government says that universal credit will have taken 11 years by the time it is rolled out, pensions auto-enrolment is a similarly drawn-out process, and even reform of the apprenticeships programme will take more than half a decade. But these tasks pale in insignificance when compared with the immense Brexit challenge.

The subject which has set the course of British politics for 40 years—Europe—will continue to do so. And that is one of the great ironies of exit: the public had enough of the EU and so voted to leave it, with the consequence that Europe will dominate British politics more than it did before.