The PM and Hammond end their spat

It was no surprise to read yesterday morning that Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, has apparently dropped his opposition to leaving the EU single market and accepted the need for border controls for EU citizens, attitudes that were annoying many Tory backbenchers who want Brexit to begin now. According to one wellplaced source, Mr Hammond “couldn’t get into Number 10”, with Mrs May affording a higher priority to issues other than the economy for immediate attention. Now he has come round to her, and most Tory MPs’, way of thinking, he may get a warmer welcome.

The increasingly demented antiBritish pronouncements last week by Jean-Claude Juncker demonstrated that the EU has learnt precisely nothing from the kicking our people have just given it. Rumours that the EU intends to make negotiations so difficult that we find it hard to leave must be met by a show of force – that we are leaving whether it likes it or not, that its £69 billion annual trade surplus with us makes it in the EU’s interests to be reasonable, and that we regard no deal as better than a bad deal. It is reassuring that Mr Hammond too now understands that Brexit means Brexit.