Letter of the day

The takeover of the government ministerial dictatorship by its Eurosceptic fringe is about to collide with reality.

The relief that a trade deal with the EU has at last arrived should not disguise this moment of national self-harm. It is the first multinational trade agreement that erects more barriers to trade that it eliminates.

The entire Brexit campaign was a political cop-out designed to prevent the arguments, and squabbling breaking out in the fundamentally Conservative pro-EU party from destroying itself and losing political power for a generation.

Those of us on the remain side have no rational evidence we will be richer, happier, and free of the EU’s common trading regulations. The rolling over of the EU’s trade agreements with a number of other states doesn’t even begin to counterbalance the 48 per cent loss of trade in goods from our nearest neighbours in the world’s largest single trading bloc.

But here’s the rub – the British government doesn’t believe it either, not really. The prime minister doesn’t. For Boris Johnson it was just a means to an end.

Very few in the cabinet do either. Most of his ministers don’t. Can there be a sadder disgrace, personal as well as political, than for those in power to blindly pursue a project for which they have no enthusiasm,

DEAL EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier. in which in their heart of hearts they do not believe, and which most of them suspect, and some of them know, will damage the nation they lead, the very ordinary men and women who’ve placed their trust in them?

This flimsy new trade treaty will not end the national argument about where Britain’s prosperity and security lies. It will simply lead to years of Brexternity.

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