What are we rushing into?

What are we rushing into? Does Mrs May know?

Security
We have been paying the French £62 million a year to provide security at Calais. The Home Office has now agreed to increase the payments by tens of millions of pounds. We are also negotiating a new contract for Channel Tunnel security - the likely cost is £80 million a year.

These agreements allow British police to work in Calais, preventing illegal immigrants from even travelling to the UK, so overall they should still give us a net saving. Mr Macron has considered scrapping the deal but is willing to continue with it if Britain pays more.

Medicine
The European Medicines Agency has left London for Amsterdam, the European Banking Authority has gone to Paris. That's over 1,000 highly-paid jobs gone already - and we have to pay for moving them, including £500 million to sort out a botched rental contract. Not only that, we need to sort out our replacement for the agency - or do we just accept EU regulation?

Finance
The UK deals with 90% of all clearing of euro-denominated derivatives. European regulators want to in-house this once the UK leaves the EU. Frankfurt's Eurex is their alternative. The European Central Bank has already tried this once in 2015 but EU judges stopped them. Post-Brexit all the European Commission need do is make clearing houses legally obliged to reside in the EU.

Frankfurt has managed this once before - in the 1990s they took over managing German bond futures from London.

Regulated financial companies can't wait any longer to find out what will happen in a few months time. Over half are starting to put their contingency 'no deal' plans into action. This will mean up to 10,000 jobs moving abroad.

Advertising
The UK exported £5.8 billion worth of advertising services in 2016 making it a magnet for overseas talent, which in turn drives more exports. This positive feedback will be lost unless we remain open to talented workers settling here. And it isn't just advertising - all export-heavy industries compete on the world stage and need top talent to do this.

Industry Investment
Unilever has announced it is upping sticks completely - it is moving its legal home to Holland after nearly 90 years. Other companies are holding off on investment in the UK - and it is the most successful that are the most pessimistic. Without investment the UK's productivity - already woefully low - will keep falling, which will mean wages will be squeezed.

Exports
The UK has around 70,000 small companies which export only to the EU. They have never had to deal with customs forms or delays. If we end up under WTO rules (as Brextremists want) then customs red tape will cost £27 billion a year. Even a customs union will impose costs of £17 billion a year. The companies' best strategy is to improve their productivity so as to cover the increased cost. Employees will have to make more if they want to keep their jobs, but there won't be any pay rises.

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We can deal with these issues. It won't be easy and we will be poorer, at least for a while. However if we are going to make it long-term then it is vital that the government gets its act together, decides what Brexit will actually look like and then prepares the UK properly for it.