Never give a sucker an even break

Mrs May is doing her utmost to push Brexit negotiations forward. The chief negotiator for the EU, Mr Barnier, is supporting her. So why are Germany, France and Romania dragging their heels?

As we knew when we began, the EU has decades of experience in conducting complex negotiations. We have Mr Davis. However this isn't about our incompetence or intransigence. The negotiations have barely begun - the trade negotiations are yet to start at all - and already Mr Davis has caved in spectacularly fast on key points.

Mrs May has also made extravagant promises to the EU. Admittedly, she is refusing to put them in writing, and we all know how much her promises are worth. She may not even be around long enough to break them.

Meanwhile, German politicians are focused on sorting out the workings of the new coalition forming after their recent election, and Mr Macron is busy trying to face down the entrenched French unions - a task that none of his predecessors managed.

However, none of the above explains why Germany has introduced a three-month discussion window to 'determine the EU's mandate'. Experts say this could be sorted in three days. You would almost think that they are playing at 'brinkmanship', pushing us as far as possible in order to extract as many concessions as possible.

Surely not - that would risk us simply pulling out, jumping off the cliff and defaulting to WTO rules (if we can). The EU wouldn't want that - we are such an important trading partner!

50% of all our non-gold exports go to the EU, and yet we have an influential section of the Conservative party who are willing - even eager - to toss that overboard. Only 8% of EU exports go to the UK. It is not at all surprising then that there are many in the EU who feel that no deal is better than wasting time on negotiations, time that could be better spent on other, more important, things.

After all, if the UK is going to go it alone, then we will be desperate to strike trade deals. Who better to do a deal than our nearest market, the largest in the world, and one that we have already a lot of experience with? That'd be the EU then. Of course, being desperate we may have to accept rather uncomfortable conditions.

The remaining EU countries may see this as an all-round win, but are too canny to say: Get shot of a reluctant member who has a special deal; dampen anti-EU feeling as the damage Brexit does to Britain becomes clearer and clearer; tempt businesses to relocate from the UK; and then cash in by doing a great export deal on better terms than currently possible.

To cap it all, they don't even need to feel guilty: "Well, they did it to themselves. They chose to leave and we need to consider our own best interests first."

Or, as the Americans put it: "Never give a sucker an even break."