Don’t expect fireworks over London tonight on the second anniversary of the Brexit vote. Murmurs of satisfaction in Brussels are more likely, as European Union mandarins congratulate themselves on casting a spanner into Britain’s efforts to save itself from the continent’s super state.

Brexiteers sold independence at least partly on the basis that EU trade restrictions penalized British producers and consumers, imposing high tariffs within the bloc and keeping members from enjoying more favorable trade relationships with non-member countries. Freed from the EU’s regulatory and protectionist barriers, Britain could once more compete on the global stage and negotiate agreements with Europe that were mutually agreeable.

All trade is based on this win-win scenario, but Brussels will have none of it. Officials far prefer to keep impediments in place that are equally damaging to its member states and to Britain and, perhaps far more important given the rise of protest parties, signal that opposition to EU diktat will not be tolerated.

Keeping Britain in the single market for goods is the latest “compromise” advanced by “Remoaners.” While details of this proposal remain vague, critics argue international trade would be compromised and still give EU tribunals jurisdiction over British commerce. Several manufacturers have added their voices to this clamor, pleading time constraints to implementing internal policies to take advantage of world-wide trade — as if the bare minimum of three years from Brexit vote to formal separation were insufficient scope for preparation.

Foreign minister Boris Johnson, never one to forgo a celebration, hits the pages of the London Sun to do what he does best: talk up the benefits of the “Brexit dividend” and warn wavering colleagues not to lose the plot. Britons “don’t want some bog roll Brexit — soft, yielding and seemingly infinitely long,” Mr. Johnson admonishes. “They want this government to fulfil the mandate of the people — and deliver a full British Brexit.”

Can it be argued that Mr. Johnson does not have another date in mind as well? British elections must be held no later than 2022, and the Conservative minority government confronts adversaries both fore and aft, with a sniping Labor opposition and unrest from its own backbench MPs. So while he praises the “spirit of the new Global Britain” exemplified as “confident, open, internationalist, free trading” in a ministry “led” by Theresa May, the Sun publishes audio remarks in which Mr. Johnson suggests that President Trump, for all his faults, would perform better than she on the Brexit file.

“What a fantastic idea” he exclaimed at the thought of Mr. Trump negotiating Brexit. That was at a closed-door meeting of Conservatives Wednesday evening. It would be “worth thinking about,” he said. “How would Donald Trump have approached our Brexit negotiations? There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, there’d be all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere.”

Mr. Johnson’s repeated grumblings about the progress of Brexit would no doubt have triggered his firing were Mr. Trump his boss, but it is a sign of the Foreign Secretary’s popularity and Mrs. May’s weakness that he remains in Cabinet to harry his leader. Yet an airing of grievances is part-and-parcel of parliamentary government, unlike the American system where executive appointments serve at “the pleasure of the president.”

Perhaps Mr. Johnson is also slyly calling notice to EU hypocrisy by extolling President Trump’s statesmanship. For while Europe condemns Mr. Trump’s imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum — de rigueur for advocates of free trade, the division of labor, and economic well-being — the continental bureaucracy seeks similar restrictions on potential future trade deals with “liberated” Britain. If American protectionism is so bad for global prosperity, why are Brexiteers castigated for wanting to free England from an oppressive European yoke?

Doubtless the American Founders could sympathize with their twenty-first century cousins’ struggles to sever ties with a political entity that hinders economic growth and restricts realization of identity and destiny. Boris Johnson first suggested the successful referendum would be the United Kingdom’s own Independence Day. While there may be no fireworks in the sky, the pride of having taken steps to retake their national honor will burn brightly in every Brexiteer’s heart.