Shrugging off Brexit

The EU economy is growing much faster than ours, the UK and Italy are well to the rear of the pack. The single currency itself is doing so well that the EU is unable to raise interest rates for fear of pushing the euro too high. The damage already done to the UK by Brexit has warned off other EU members, so support for other EU exits has collapsed.

The EU is also planning ahead. They accept that the UK will leave, and are focused on other things. Mr Macron is shaking up the French economy, and has plans for increased integration of the core EU members. We, on the other hand, still have no idea what we even want to happen - let alone what is going to happen. We don't even know who will be PM in January.

It is reminiscent of a group of friends deciding to go a film. Britney stomps out because no-one wants to see the film she chose, slams the door and as she marches off she looks round - to find no-one is following her, in fact they have already dismissed her from their thoughts and are happily chatting away inside selecting a restaurant. Worse, the door has locked behind her.

Right now we are about to stomp out. The door hasn't yet closed behind us. If we really are going to head on out then we need to make sure that we are prepared - where did we put our coat and umbrella? do we need a taxi? - and understand that while our mates will be sorry to see us go it isn't really all that important to them. If we don't want to come along then so be it.

Mrs May does appear to understand this. She wants a transition deal to give us time to sort ourselves out. She has accepted that we will need to pay our debts. She may even realise that the EU will simply shrug its shoulders if she threatens 'no deal'.

If so then she also knows that it is up to the UK to make the running in the negotiations. They have things we want but we don't have much to offer them. Worse, even if we negotiated a dream deal we would still have a mountain of jobs to do, sorting out laws, regulators, trade and so on.

It won't be a dream, but Mrs May should do her best to prevent it becoming a nightmare. She needs to agree to the EU payments and EU citizen rights so that we can sign off on stage one of the negotiations and get on with sorting out the trade deal.