Forget Brexit

Maybe we should forget the Brexit negotiations for the moment and get our WTO problems sorted.

After all, all our effort will have been wasted if we don't have an agreement at the end of it. Current progress is so slow that this looks less and less likely. If we do tumble off the cliff edge then we will need the WTO to partly break our fall. Do we split our negotiating team or prioritise?

Senior EU diplomats question whether Mrs May is able to deliver on any promises she makes: "What are her commitments worth if she is gone?" They even question whether she knows what she can promise, "The Tories have to decide what they want... We want clarity." However, resigning would simply mean leaving Brexit negotiations in limbo for three months while choosing a new party leader.

Our foreign secretary has positioned himself as being against anything but the hardest of Brexits, yet Mrs May is too weak politically to get rid of Mr Johnson."Can we seriously talk about a transition when... her government is so publicly split?" said an EU source.

The situation is not helped by Mrs Merkel's poor showing in the recent elections. Her party's long-time coalition partner has gone into opposition so as to prevent the far-right from being the majority opposition, so she is having to forge new alliances and doesn't have any time for a sideshow such as Brexit.

German business leaders (including representatives from Airbus, Siemens and Deutsche Bank) are publicly preparing for a hard Brexit.

If Mrs May doesn't get her act together right now then we will need to do the same.