Poor face Brexit butcher’s bill

WE don’t know who footed the bill for Theresa May’s panicked dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker and Michel Barnier last night – but the price of leaving the EU is becoming clearer by the day.

Research on the tariffs the UK would face if we crashed out of the EU with no trade deal, as many Brexiteer Tories would prefer, shows that every household would see price rises of £500 a year.

The poorer households, who struggle to put food on the table, would be the worst affected as a proportion of their income.

The poorer regions, like the West Midlands, Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland, would be hit hard in their pockets if the UK goes for a hard Brexit.

If the butcher’s bill in terms of increased tariffs is £500 a household now, that is a figure that will surely rise as the economy stutters from the effect of a hard Brexit.

In her woeful mishandling of the Brexit negotiations – from the hardline Lancaster House speech and the more conciliatory Florence speech to the scrambled dinner invitation and desperate phone calls to EU leaders – Theresa May shows how ill-suited her Government have been.

There were other, more imaginative ways to tackle negotiations – including opposition parties and devolved governments properly in the opening stages and keeping them on board as the nation moved towards Brexit.

But that would have taken leadership and confidence.

Instead, we have a split Cabinet of ambitious ministers more intent on negotiating with each other than on behalf of the nation – and wrecking our prospects as they go along.