Kelly £39bn to have a smaller voice

freedom to diverge from EU law on the single market and customs union”.

How far will this vote to diverge go? Could those who want to ‘converge’ have their say. Could it mean a second referendum?

Bearing in mind that the public, as much as the politicians, have learned over the last 18 months what being in the EU actually means – both good and bad – why not a second referendum?

It says much about the paucity of Tory achievement of late that the party is bigging up Theresa May’s ‘triumph’ in securing the agreement with Brussels to start post-Brexit trade negotiations. The EU referen- dum was, of course, 18 months ago and what was settled last week could have been agreed 17 months back.

There is nothing within the agreement that varies much from what the EU said it wanted from the start to get to Act Two of this political drama (farce) under way.

However, as has been noted by most everyone, there has been a lot of crossing the so-called ‘red lines’ set out by May in previous speeches.

‘We will take back control of our laws and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain,’ had the Brexiteers waving their pikestaffs with particular fervour. However, the court now has reach over Britain for another eight years after the UK leaves the EU.

Then there’s the leaving-the-single-market bit. The agreement reached in Brussels stated: “In the absence of agreed solutions, the UK will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union.”

In short, the UK won’t be a member of the single market or have any power to shape its laws, but it will have to abide by those laws for a very long time, maybe for ever.

For this, May has agreed the British people will pay £39bn, money that could have been better spent elsewhere.

Prime minister Theresa May’s negotiations in Brussels have brought a far-from-satisfactory ‘agreement’