SIMON WATKINS

THE Prime Minister’s speech on Brexit last week brought some clarity, but only on things that were already obvious. On the details of how Brexit will take shape and what the eventual new agreement with Europe will look like, we are still very much in the dark.

Britain, Theresa May declared, will leave the single market. This came as a surprise to some, but it is hard to see why. The vast majority of people understood that to be at the core of what ‘leaving the EU’ would mean even before the referendum. The signals from May’s Government since June have always indicated that leaving the single market was all but inevitable.

As for the other key issues involved in Brexit, we remain without details. On immigration the PM and her Chancellor Philip Hammond made emollient noises last week citing the economic benefits migration has brought. Some business leaders, notably the pro-Brexit (but not anti-immigration) boss of Next Lord Wolfson, have expressed relief.

But we are still dealing with mood music rather than any clear facts. How much EU immigration will be allowed and whether EU citizens will continue to get preferential rights to work in the UK is unclear and will be the subject of negotiation with the rest of the EU. As for our future trade relations with Europe, we still have little idea of what shape this will take, mainly because it will depend on what the 27 other member states agree after negotiation.

One ‘blue-chip’ boss told me last week that sorting this detail would be crucial. Too much paperwork at the border, he said, could be immensely damaging. Adding just a few hours to how long it takes a lorry to pass either way through customs would play havoc with supplies to British manufacturers and retailers and with British exporters.

We do not know what shape the new custom arrangement will take.

Then there was the rhetoric of threat brandished by May and Hammond. Both warned last week that unless we get a good deal with the EU, we could walk away and use our tax system as a competitive tool to face down Europe. In other words, cut corporate taxes to attract global business. Whether or not this bellicose approach is good diplomacy, there have to be doubts about whether this would be the right response.

The PM has rightly highlighted the disenchantment many people feel with a version of globalisation that allows corporations and the international elite to benefit from a borderless world.

Embracing this form of globalisation – cutting business tax aggressively to attract more Googles and Apples – would fly in the face of the public mood of recent years as well as May’s own rhetoric. It is also surely not what most people who voted from Brexit were aiming for.