London's Uber Ban Is a Big Brexit Mistake

Prime Minister Theresa May made a big speech Friday on Brexit negotiations, but the bigger news coming out of London may have been that the transit authority, Transport for London, decided not to renew the license of Uber Technologies Inc. to operate inside city limits. The decision is a clear statement that the future of both London and the U.K. are less bright than we might have thought even a few days ago.

Banning Uber shows that a post-Brexit nation won’t be the libertarian paradise that many Brexit advocates have been predicting or at least clamoring for. The notion was that European Union regulation was horribly restrictive, and British business would blossom under a reign of newfound freedom, if only it could be left to its own devices. Although that was never very plausible to begin with, it was a common argument from Brexit supporters such as MP Daniel Hannan. It’s now hard to raise that point with any credibility.