We are failing to fix the big issues as we mop up after our EU divorce - Christine Jardine

As the last year of this parliamentary term approaches, Christine Jardine reflects on the big, damaging issues that remain unresolved due to Brexit.

Six years ago today parliament was preparing for a new intake of MPs, including myself, sent to Westminster largely to sort out the mess created by that Brexit win.

To have the privilege of serving.

Today, those of us who survived the 2019 reset will yet again attempt to repair, or at least mitigate, the damage done and address the issues left unresolved or neglected as a result of our EU divorce.

The Grenfell tragedy of 2017 is one of the fundamental issues that remains unresolved due to our EU divorce, writes Christine Jardine. PIC: ChiralJon/CC

Grenfell, WASPI women, the infected blood scandal and so much more.

All of them seemingly put to one side as the Government floundered and failed to get Brexit done before we were engulfed by Covid and then the war in Ukraine.

Of course there are new challenges aggravated by the pandemic and conflict in Europe, but it is the failure to tackle those pre-existing problems for which we have perhaps failed to now hold four Prime Ministers to account.

As I waited to be ushered into and around my new workplace that morning six summers ago, Grenfell was about to happen.

All these years later we have had the 400-day inquiry, held over four years and completed in November 2022, but somehow the impetus to fix the problems which caused it never seems to have matched our hopes.

One of the first constituents to come to me for help in my early months as Edinburgh West MP was a WASPI woman who had retired what she thought was two years early, totally unaware and unprepared for the impact that pension age changes would have on her life.

She is still waiting for justice.

Her contemporaries must look at the disgraceful and continuing delay over decades suffered by victims of the infected blood scandal of the 1980s and worry they might have to endure the same treatment.

There is no excuse.

For two years the constant complaint from the Government was that obstinate Remainers, and unreasonable Brexiters, were delaying a sensible outcome, and disrupting political life.

The media circus on the green opposite parliament was a constant buzz of speculation about the late-night votes and deal blocking that were the norm.

But all that ended in 2019 with Boris’ victory.

The media village is gone, the Commons is now back to its strange routine and even the Prime Ministerial merry go round seems to have slowed down.

But still we look for solutions.

Certainly, there have been individual, local or one-off progressions in the intervening years to treasure.

There is a landmark Domestic Abuse Bill that I am proud to have led on for my party.

The beaming smile of young Murray Gray whose life has been transformed by our success in persuading the Government to legalise medicinal cannabis, although its availability in the NHS remains an unresolved issue.

The promise of much needed levelling up across the UK, is of course welcome.

Yet every week our inboxes bulge with families struggling to afford their bills and people waiting for what feels like an eternity for an operation or dental treatment.

Finding solutions in difficult times is of course, not easy, but that is the job of Government.

In the broadest terms, we know what has to be done.

As we head into the last year or thereabouts of this parliamentary term, I hope the Prime Minister reflects on that.

Brexit may well have been, for some, won. But if something does not change we will all be the losers.

Christine Jardine is the Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West