Brexit prize is in reach – now get behind PM

WHISPER it very softly, but after three excruciating years are we finally entering the Brexit endgame?

An exhausted nation fervently hopes so. Leaving the EU has been a thorn for so long it’s a struggle to remember the time when it did not dominate the headlines.

Yes, it has been the trickiest political negotiation since the Second World War. But our elected representatives (not helped by adolescent intransigence in Brussels) have made a contemptible hash of it.

It has been a truly distasteful spectacle: Interminable false starts, juddering negotiations, unseemly grandstanding, tantrums and bitter recriminations.

But finally, there appears to be a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. After Boris Johnson and Irish premier Leo Varadkar shook hands on solving the problem of the loathed Irish backstop, the EU has agreed to enter final talks over the weekend – surely boosting the prospect of a deal.

Details of concessions are scant. But let’s hope it is not another false promise.

Any agreement must let us regain control of our money, laws and borders, while being able to strike trade agreements with burgeoning economies around the world.

In London, the pound rose and stock market surged – an encouraging sign from the markets about the size of the prize.

The long-suffering public just want us to leave – to end the crippling uncertainty, lift the handbrake on investment, shore up jobs and set us back on the path to prosperous, independent nationhood. Remain MPs have been wailing like banshees about national unity. Surely, the best way to achieve that would be to honour the result of the biggest democratic act in the history of our islands.

Mr Johnson has strained every sinew to get a deal. If he does, maybe his opponents should stop using every trick in the book to nobble him – and back it.