£50bn for Brexit divorce! Didn’t we sign a prenup?

“At the heart of the referendum decision was sovereignty. A strong, independent country needs control of its own laws. That process starts now. Converting EU law into UK law and ending the supremacy of lawmakers in Brussels is an important step in giving businesses, workers and consumers the certainty they need”- THE Scientist Albert Einstein once said “if I could do it all again I would be a plumber.”

I suppose former prime minister David Cameron must be thinking something similar given that he lost his job after failing to convince the public of the merits of staying in Europe.

Day in day out we witness the pro and antis of Europe going at it like two ferrets in a sack.

The politicians who created this mess didn’t have a clue what they were letting this country in for.

A bit of light relief was brought to the proceedings by those who marched in London calling for a second referendum carrying placards such as ‘Oh to be in Europe now that Trump is here’ and ‘Hard Brexit? You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.’

Now leading figures in Europe are saying it will cost the UK trapped in the EU and they still hanker after joining the Euro.

Either way that would lock us more firmly into the fate of the Eurozone. At the moment European Central Bank Quantitative Easing is feeding almost free money to Eurozone resident banks to avert bankruptcies.

These banks are the biggest holders of the sovereign debt (or bonds) issued by Eurozone governments. Now Eurozone inflation is rising so the QE must soon cease.

When it does, the Euro banks will need cash so will start selling their sovereign bonds.

This will trigger lower bond prices at higher yields, reducing the asset backing of the banks, while at the same time making sovereign debt more expensive.

Ironically, ECB QE has amplified the interdependence of the Eurozone economies and their banks.

For the weaker Euro economies, a sovereign debt crisis will become a banking crisis and vice versa.

To add to that brew, Eurozone banks have an average of 5.4% non-performing loans (NPL) estimated to be over €1 trillion, a rate three times worse than any other major currency area. By comparison, the UK’s NPL is just 1%.