It’s not only British women who can’t negotiate. Just ask Michel Barnier...

Schooled to put others first and to doubt their own wants and needs, women – so the wisdom goes – are far worse than men at demanding things like pay rises. Unsurprisingly, this axiomatic idea underpins new government guidance on closing the gender pay gap. Rather than expecting them to ovary up and demand specific figures, the advice goes, women should be told their “salary range” by their employers, so they know what they can expect before they enter the board room. This is because, according to the advice, “women are less likely to negotiate their pay… because women are put off if they are not sure about what a reasonable offer is”.

But while there are long-standing reasons for women’s reluctance to badger bosses on their own behalf, the assumption that British women are streets behind the menfolk when it comes to negotiation deserves a pause for thought. OK, so women may be shoddy negotiators, but what about Brits more widely?

The fact is, we’re a nation which prefers fudges, reading between the lines, gentlemen’s agreements and avoiding the brash grabs and hard bargains that are most associated with Americans.

All Britons panic in soukhs, because a haggling situation is our worst nightmare. I was once in a tuk-tuk with a male friend in Delhi and he simply handed over the vast sum in cash suggested by the driver as a kind of joke – he couldn’t even take the hint of a barter.

Our national ineptitude when it comes to playing hardball has been laid bare throughout the Brexit negotiations – a relentless set of kicks in the teeth by hardballplaying, coldly strategising, mercilessly self-interested EU negotiators. While our Government keeps fussing, adjusting and giving in, the EU has been merrily putting aside all decorum (who cares about l’élégance

française when you have coffers to fill?). Rumour has it that Michel Barnier has been deploying negotiating tactics that are taught at Harvard.

And, boy, do Americans know how to fight their corner. Perhaps it’s because they are aware that if they don’t do it, nobody else will. I’ve recently been attempting to negotiate a contract with a British publisher interested in publishing my PHD research. When I showed the contract to my parents – both lawyers in the US (though both are Brits) – they were horrified and immediately said I should refuse to sign unless several substantive changes were made.

Predictably, when I followed their advice and pushed back, I was made to feel like a freak by the publisher. Negotiate a book contract? How rude!

Needless to say I haven’t got very far and will probably have to take the natural British route of signing on the dotted line, while hoping for the best. My parents are aghast. “But it’s a negotiation!” they exclaim. In America, sure. But in Blighty, negotiation is a psychological game of concealed agendas, poker faces and crossed fingers.

Our Government doesn’t have even the luxury of a road map with Brexit. Certainly there is no “pretty standard”. So unless it extricates itself from its deeply embedded Britishness – rooted in a distaste for overly “aggressive” tactics when it comes to transactions and a muddling-through attitude to problem-solving – and fast, we’re all going to go to hell in a handbasket. And in hell, nobody cares about manners.

follow Zoe Strimpel on Twitter @zstrimpel; read More at telegraph.co.uk/opinion