Brexit strategy

For months, now, a hunt has been on for the government’s Brexit strategy. Theresa May has quite rightly refused to disclose it. She knows that the European Union needs to be seen to make Britain suffer. She will have to ask for for a lot, only to back down so the EU can have its pound of British flesh. The hope is that she can then emerge with what she wanted all along. So a game of bluff is under way. This has created a rather unsatisfactory situation where Parliament wants to know where she will draw the line, and she refuses to say. Her every word is scoured for clues. None have been forthcoming.

No one scours the House of Lords for clues on anything nowadays, and yet the real Brexit strategy may have been revealed in an announcement by Baroness Neville-Rolfe, a business minister. Britain, she said, has decided to press ahead with plans to join an EU-wide patent system.