Reports out over the weekend suggest that Brexit may be delayed until late 2019 now that the various ministers responsible for the process have started to get to grips with how tricky it will be to extricate the UK from the European Union and establish new trade relationships with the rest of the world.

Of course, the timing of Brexit, like Brexit itself, will be a delicate balancing act. The Government won’t want to start the clock by triggering Article 50 until it is ready (and possibly not until after the French and German elections in May and September next year).

However, if it is seen to be dragging its heels, it will face increasing pressure from fervent Brexiteers and the EU’s remaining 27 members who want Brexit done and dusted before the European elections in June 2019.

Time will tell how realistic that is. Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, believes that the UK needs to conduct five interconnecting sets of trade negotiations (actually he identifies more but I’m going to leave out those on foreign, defence and security policies for the sake of simplicity).