Brexit? Get on with it!

MY FUTURE mother paid a shilling to buy her Gold Issue Daily Mail, which gave a concise account of the Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28, 1919. I have kept this framed paper and, though it has lost its gold edges, its down-to- earth clarity and informed editorial could have been written yesterday.

In the seven and a half months between the Armistice and the Treaty, heads of state, diplomats, politicians and their staff from around the globe gathered.

World maps were redrawn, nations reimbursed, wrongs righted and legalities sweated out before the Treaty was signed.

What would Mum have thought of today’s politics? I can imagine her making this pithy comment: ‘If nations in the shadow of war, without modern communication, but just pen, paper and telegraph, could come up with a complicated agreement in double-quick time, why can’t 28 countries in peacetime, with every modern advantage, agree on the Irish backstop?’

I can’t wait to frame my copy of the Daily Mail with the front-page headline: ‘Brexit done!’

Name supplied, Crowborough, e. Sussex.