It would make no sense to spurn taking control of our trade policy and leave it with the EU – in which we will no longer have a say.
If you don’t like what the Treasury’s up to, criticise the Chancellor, who’s accountable for it – not those who work for him, who aren’t.
It’s often suggested that the Remain wing of the Cabinet wouldn’t wear such a choice. I doubt it.
Basically, we need to undercut the world. We can do so if we slash red tape and tax. Within a very short period there would be a pronounced Laffer Effect.
If making a final decision seemed too risky for the Prime Minister, her deliberate indecision has now proved even more dangerous.
Even Whitehall’s fiercest advocates of the need to stay as close as possible to the EU recognise that there are risks in being a rule-taker not a rule-maker.
Yesterday, I wrote to the Chancellor with the support of 50 of the biggest and most established businesses in the Tees Valley, to call for a pilot scheme.
The Prime Minister has made the freedom to strike trade deals, so important to key allies and the membership, a cornerstone of her strategy.
That means taking back full control – then using our new-found independence to its greatest possible benefit.
The deal’s internal contradictions are coming back to haunt it, to the confusion of May, Varadkar, Juncker, Barnier – the whole lot of them.
Plus: May’s EU trials, Labour’s EU shifts – and how Russia got there before Trump by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Well, part of it.
The Prime Minister’s stance on regulatory alignment is very hard indeed to square with his vision of a freewheeling Britain. Watch this space.
It would allow the Prime Minister to gain support from the moderates of her party and, crucially, gain the initiative in the more centrist national debate.