For all the chatter about the Customs Union, leaving the EU in full is still on course. But May’s bungled election has raised the chances of a disorderly outcome.
There are only five days to go until the start of the Brexit negotiations. May cannot afford to make a reshuffle mess of a department from which she has now lost two Ministers.
The absence of tariffs comes last, not first. They are the end-point of a successful negotiation, not its starting-point. They are the icing on the cake.
Such a deal would, on balance, be better than Most Favoured Nation Status. But MFN would be better than a bad deal – and giving up on regaining control of our borders.