With Boris disgraced and his Brexit project failing, we must rethink joining Europe

We are within a week of the seventh anniversary of the referendum that ended our relationship with the European Union.

That was a deeply controversial proposal, and was supported by only the narrowest majority of British people.

There is a far larger majority today for the growing consensus that Brexit has failed.

A bonfire of suffocating Brussels controls promised to illuminate the skies in one great leap to freedom. As the years passed, the tinder wood became harder to find as the target for repeal shrank from 4,000 to some 600 unidentified offenders. We are still waiting for the details.

Clearest of all was the promise to regain control of our borders. Despite the record numbers of immigrants, the shortage of skilled workers is a major inhibitor in our economic performance.

The world was waiting to sign up for the new trade deals that would more than compensate for our decision to sever our access to our largest home market. The only serious new deal was with Australia and New Zealand, which even the minister who helped negotiate it said was bad for Britain. So damaging to farmers are the consequences that the implementation has been delayed until after the next election.

If there is a consensus that Brexit has failed as the evidence in support gathers by the day, there is still no agreement as to why it has failed.

I have no doubt as to why it has failed. It was bound to fail. All those Tory prime ministers who have so influenced my life and for whom I worked were not idiots. They recognised the growing interdependence of the European nations in the face of the world’s superpowers. They had learnt the lesson of history and were determined to stop the continent’s all too familiar resort to conflict. As significant as any was Margaret Thatcher, who helped to design the single market and protect our interests in the process.

The huge European market gave the Commission bargaining powers to negotiate trade deals helpful to us, and that is why virtually all the new deals we have signed are simply carbon copies of what we had as members.

The Brexiteers have a different explanation for the failure of Brexit, proclaiming that it was never tried or given a chance. What have they been doing for seven years? From David Cameron’s resignation the levers of power have been in their hands with the entire strength of our civil service to help them. Presumably they knew which constraints needed to be removed before they made all those speeches about the damage they were causing.

The reality is much worse. The Brexit case from the outset was never based on reasoned arguments or detailed policies. That was not the appetite they sought to fill. The diet was one of slogans interwoven with the familiar targets of the mob – the civil service, foreigners, immigrants, Brussels.

The mood is changing. There is a growing awareness of the deception that has taken place and the lies that underpinned it.

The time has come for the British people to be told the truth. The leaders of our political parties cannot go on hiding from the damage to our economy, our reputation in the world and the frustration of our younger generation.

The time to recreate our position at the centre of Europe has arrived.

Lord Heseltine is the former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom