Brexit negotiations continue: Softening of zealotry offers hope

IT seems fair to suggest that had the Irish side caused the tentative deal on Brexit to evaporate on Monday rather than our friends from across the Irish Sea, the recriminations would be of a different order.

IT seems fair to suggest that had the Irish side caused the tentative deal on Brexit to evaporate on Monday rather than our friends from across the Irish Sea, the recriminations would be of a different order. The old-style British comedians, much more Ukip than funny, would recycle the Thick Mick slurs. The well-assimilated children of immigrants would cringe in silence.

Cartoonists would offer characters from the Punch back catalogue, all endowed with simian jawlines. Boris Johnson would go off script and embarrass even his long-suffering civil servants. The Sun might publish another shut-your-gob diatribe.