Sir Vince Cable says prospect of no Brexit deal is ‘becoming very real’

Politicians, civil servants and voters are increasingly thinking Britain will not leave the European Union despite Theresa May’s attempts to form a “very British” Brexit grand coalition with Labour, Sir Vince Cable has said.

Sir Vince, who is standing to become the next Liberal Democrat leader, said “enormous” difficulties will become apparent during exit negotiations which will amount to “Euratom times a hundred”.

Mrs May’s desire to leave the European civil nuclear regulator has been the subject of a row among Tories in recent 0 Sir Vince Cable says there will be enormous difficulties days, despite previously being treated as a minor issue.

“More and more people, politicians and civil servants [are] saying actually this thing isn’t going to happen and it’s based on several things,” Sir Vince told a Westminster lunch.

“I think the sheer enormous complexity and difficulty, and then something like Euratom... an issue that nobody had thought about, but we’ve got Euratom times a hundred out there and nobody can see a way through that.”

The former business secretary said the EU is now in a strengthened political position with the election of Emmanuel Macron as French president, while the UK faces economic troubles with a short term credit bubble ending and “terrible” data from the car manufacturing sector, which is highly reliant on cross-eu supply chains.