Brexit’s progress is defying the doom-mongers’ predictions

That EU leaders have agreed to move to the next stage of Brexit talks and rubber stamp the transition period is no great surprise. It took just a matter of minutes this morning for them to wave through guidelines on the negotiations for a future trade deal between Britain and the EU. But while the announcement was something of a foregone conclusion, today’s news is still significant for a simple reason: Brexit talks are progressing in a way some of the doom-mongers said would never happen.

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Of course, Britain – and the EU, for that matter – isn’t there yet. And a year on from the triggering of Article 50, there is plenty still to do. On a number of tricky areas – not least the question of the Irish border – there is a fair dollop of fudge holding things together for the time being.