Liz Truss, war and Brexit have left Global Britain a laughing stock

Jacob Rees-Mogg, you may recall, was one of the chief cheerleaders for the joys of Brexit, back in the day when breezy promises were scattered around on the sides of buses and Boris Johnson and Michael Gove toured the land boasting of the massive and global opportunities leaving the EU would instantly provide. Why, the sunlit uplands were just around the corner.

Such dewy-eyed optimism has been in short supply lately with the self-same ­hyphenated one opining the true worth of the 2016 decision to quit might not be ­wholly visible for half a century. When he and his wrecking crew are well dead.

In the meantime, one hedged one’s bets by his company decamping to Dublin in ­order to stay a part of the hated EU and its regulatory regime. More recently that ­company cashed in its stake in Russia’s Sberbank before the invasion of Ukraine caused the latter to implode. See, Jacob’s not as daft as he looks.

He’s even found himself a posh office which once belonged to that ace Brexit ­negotiator Lord Frost who left the stage ­saying that this Tory government was far from being conservative enough.

Nothing at all to do with the fact that his lack of geopolitical nous had left BJ and Co with an intractable problem in Ireland, and a protocol devised by himself which was causing chaos, not to mention pissing off the current President of the USA who is now as likely to do a sexy big trade deal with the UK as he is to dance naked at Trump’s next wedding.

Back home, even some of the more rabid right-wing media have found themselves ­uncharacteristically tongue-tied when asked why the Brexit miracle appears to be on life support.

There have, of course, been massively ­important and radical changes to our ­lifestyle thanks to the noisy Brexit lobby. You can have a blue passport instead of a Burgundy one. Admittedly in had to be sourced from France, but what’s not to ­admire about a government seeking the best buy for its buck?

Though not, obviously, in the case of pandemic contracts to pals, or ­fraudulent applications for business support schemes. I mean, almost anyone could mislay the odd billion or five. Just ask that nice chap at Number 11.

Let’s not forget either the move to put little crowns on pint beer glasses, just the very dab should you find yourself slaking your drouth in Wetherspoons, the pub chain whose owner was himself a big Brexiteer.

It’s not, since you ask, my own ­favoured wine dispenser, but who could fail to be thrilled by its celebrating three national awards in the Loos of the Year ­competition? It’s also just published a document alleging that many porkies were told about the company during the pandemic. Touch of the potkettlism here, methinks.

The latest bid for brownie points among the super nostalgic is to bring back ­imperial weights and measures, which would get the double up by ­costing a ­considerable fortune whilst totally ­confusing anyone born after 1965 when the metric system brought us into line with our nearest neighbours.

You remember our nearest ­neighbours? Those folks just across the English ­Channel who took in our traded goods without let or hindrance, whilst allowing essential workers to travel back and forth as members of the same club.

Whose children came to our ­universities as part of a much lauded ­exchange scheme, allowing our own to gain ­invaluable ­experience of other ­cultures and languages.

The neighbours who had to be given a dizzie on account of their tendency to truss up everything in unnecessary red tape. The kind of tape currently ­strangling our exports now that we’re learning the hard way, that when you pull your ­membership you lose your ­privileges. A factoid which seems to have eluded the Lord Frost and his many predecessors in the department for leaving the EU.

But of course we have new neighbours. Admittedy they’re half a world away and a whole lot less nitpicking about animal welfare standards than those fussy folk in Brussels.

It’s true too that our own farmers are less than ecstatic about being undercut by more cheaply produced, hormone ­infested lamb and beef from Oz and NZ. Hey, you don’t make a Brexit omelette without a few eggs hitting the deck. ­Possibly from the kind of caged poultry we’d banned.

The party of business is learning that businesses don’t like parties who mess with their bottom line. Thus the ­Chamber of Commerce poll which found over five times as many of its members had ­negative views of the post-Brexit world as those who still felt positive. Perhaps they read The Sun.

At the other end of the print media scale, the Financial Times, read by the money men, hosted a cartoon of the new minister for Brexit opportunities with a microscope on his desk to help him locate some.

This last fortnight, as the tragedies unfolded and mounted in Ukraine, the UK PM jetted hither and yon searching for relevance in a world which had long written him off as a serious player. Not so much Churchill battling on the beaches, as Thatcher praying a war might solve the problem of plunging poll ratings.

Our puny global standing is yet another Brexit “bonus”. Were we still a member of the EU we would have been party to an agreement which gave Ukrainian citizens a three-year, no-questions-asked visa and took aim at the assets of 700 oligarchs.

Compare and contrast the UK being shamed into extending entry, but only to Ukrainians with relations already here, and not without going through a visa ­application.

Just what you most need when you emerge from a basement to view the ­remains of your city. Not to mention sanctioning but a handful of the Russian super-rich, and not until they’d had adequate time to shovel their wealth offshore.

The justice secretary said it might take months to sort out whom they should ­target, which might be Toryspeak for it taking months to check out who has been a big-time party donor, and how much they gave. Not for nothing did London earn the moniker “the laundromat”, so easy was it for Russians and others to clean up dirty money there.

The Home Secretary said opening our doors and hearts to war victims might pose security risks, since those pesky Russkis weren’t above slinking in ­disguised as a refugee. And all the while ordinary Germans in particular stand at border points offering their own homes as places of safety.

As I write there is a meeting of Nato’s foreign secretaries to discuss the latest refugee crisis constructed by man’s seemingly limitless inhumanity to man. The thought of the UK’s interests in any such forum being represented by Liz Truss makes me almost physically sick.

Then again, ever since Theresa May ­bafflingly appointed Boris Johnson to that office, it has seen a procession of ­increasingly ill-equipped appointments.

Johnson, Raab and Truss; it may sound like a dodgy law firm, but in truth it’s merely a dodgy government. The one we didn’t vote for. The one which is in ­favour of the freedom of small nations to ­determine their own future. Unless they happen to be called Scotland.

It is said that however this all ends ­Russia will have international pariah status. Meanwhile, the once-powerful UK will continue its new-found role as not very useful idiot.