We can avoid the futility of negotiations

SO Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, is not a happy man, saying that Britain must give greater clarification to their plans for withdrawal, and saying that unless we agree to their divorce bill, there will be no trade discussions.

Mr Barnier, has, of course, got a bit of a problem, in as much that any deal that he agrees must be approved by the remaining 27 nations within the EU. Now that will be almost impossible, unless he drives a very hard bargain designed to ensure that the UK will suffer in the years to come. To do otherwise would result in other countries such as Holland, Denmark and Italy wishing to follow our lead.

To assist him, various spin doctors are floating off all sorts of crazy ideas such that we will not be allowed to fly our planes across Euroland. Just supposing that this did happen, we would reciprocate and insist that all trans-Atlantic flights would have to go 200 miles south of St. Mary’s in the Scillies, and 200 miles north of Shetland, increasing journey times by at least an hour, not to mention additional cost. Common sense amongst politicians, pressured by business, would soon prevail.

Another little scare is in relation to trade. Businesses are worried that barriers would be erected in tax terms to penalise British goods, a point of view not discouraged by EU negotiators. Strange this, because Europe exports more goods to the UK than we do to them. We would therefore immediately reciprocate with matching legislation, thus damaging their competitiveness.

Mr Barnier is insisting that the European Court of Justice will have the final say on various matters, which is absolutely out of the question.

No sovereign country in the world allows such a state of affairs, and we should not concede this point under any circumstance.

Brussels has yet to come to terms with the fact that one of the results in being beastly to David Cameron is that they are going to lose a cool £10 billion per annum to their Exchequer, and as yet have advanced no plans to cover this. We should walk now, and not waste taxpayer’s money on futile negotiations.

Russell Luckock is chairman of Birmingham pressings firm

AE Harris