The EU should have sent Barnier off to rewrite Croatian fishing policy

The UK will face massive fines if it deviates from any of the thousands of directives that pour out of Brussels every year.

A trade agreement will take years to complete, and even then may include strict quotas on anything where we happen to have a surplus. And even if it is ever agreed it will have to include such strict oversight of tax, labour laws and industrial policy that even French public sector workers will be thinking of popping across the Channel for an easier working life.

Over the last few weeks, Michel Barnier has been issuing a constant stream of demands, edicts and ultimatums over everything that Britain will have to agree to before it will be offered a trade deal with the European Union.

But hold on. How come Barnier is still in a job? True, he was kept even as the commission changed to oversee the next phase of Brexit negotiations. And yet, in his first role as the chief Brexit negotiator he was a comprehensive failure. He overplayed his hand, and underestimated the resolve of the UK. And in the end, he blundered towards a much harder Brexit that seemed likely at the start of the process.