An air of resigned gloom has settled over City dining tables. This is not because of the usual reasons – market meltdown or a poor bonus season. Rather it is because of the realisation that finance is being sold down the river in the Government’s Brexit negotiations.

Not much of the so-called “Chequers Agreement” on Britain’s future relationship with the EU is likely to survive the Brussels mangle, but the implications for the City look particularly grim.

Every effort has been made to ensure that trade remains as frictionless as possible for manufacturing; the White Paper cedes European Court of Justice jurisdiction over standards and much else besides in its efforts to win round the EU’s ideologues. The regulatory flexibility that Brexit should have delivered is being traded for continued market access.

But for finance and other business services, it is the other way around. Market access is being traded for regulatory flexibility. Isn’t that what we wanted – the freedom to make our own rules and regulations unbound by the dead hand of Europe?

Well yes, but we were also promised, by David Davis no less, that we could leave and expect to keep “the exact same benefits” as we enjoy as a member.