Two years in and the Brexit project remains in limbo.

Negotiating teams still gather almost weekly trying to close the distance between post Brexit Britain and Brussels.

The original UK negotiator Lord Frost has been replaced by the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss. She's keen to get things done. "What I want is a negotiated solution", she says but there's a lot of history already in this deal.

However, any progress in trade negotiations is still at the mercy of national politics.

It's no secret that Boris Johnson has his own issues at present so can be heard throwing rhetoric at Brussels from time to time.

"The EU is implementing this in an insane and pettifogging way," he announced at the last Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.

Northern Ireland still tops the problem list.

Supply chains still suffer as businesses struggle with the bureaucracy of being caught between the UK across the sea and the EU next door.

It's long been clear that the post-Brexit disruption was worse than expected.

But the future of the Northern Ireland Protocol as agreed by both parties still hangs in a kind of balance. And that's still having a corrosive effect on Northern Irish politics and by extension, the peace process.

Article 16 allows either party to unilaterally abandon parts of the Northern Ireland protocol if it feels economically threatened. It's supposed to be a nuclear option. We're in 2022 and it's still on the table.

Now European attention is being drawn by more immediate concerns such as destabilisation in Ukraine and a looming energy crisis. That puts pressure on negotiators to wrap things up.

But across the UK economy employment remains difficult, with agriculture, hospitality and healthcare still feeling shortfalls.

And in transport as well – important routes between the UK and Europe  face continued uncertainties about border management.

Brexit supporters blame the pandemic for this, but even special visas haven't helped with finding more drivers.

And the heart of the struggle is still in British politics itself. If held today a referendum might well reveal the same equal national divide, but that doesn't mean people think it's going well.

"On the key question of how well Brexit is going," says Joe Twyman of Delta Poll, "that's where the government's position has deteriorated."

It's generally accepted that Boris Johnson's famous 'oven ready' deal touted round the country at campaign time, was a little overcooked.

Brexit has had to take its place among the pandemic, inflation, geo-politics, and an energy crisis.

Whatever the campaigners said at the time. Leaving the EU was never going to be easy.

Cover photo: Trucks queue at the Port of Dover. Glyn Kirk/ AFP