Those Brexiteers who were laughing at me when I said we would not leave the EU are not laughing now. Are they?

Theresa May will shortly be brought down by the cross-party agreement to enshrine the Customs Union into law as a final condition of so-called Brexit. We will be paying tens of billions of pounds as a first instalment but then we shall be paying the EU what we are probably paying now as a fee to continue to enjoy the benefits of the Customs Union.

The crunch time will be April. I said before there will be an election early this year as the Conservative Party implodes. Well it has imploded and with it the UK’s ability to negotiate. Great Britain has started a war on 27 fronts. A population of 60 million odd cannot overwhelm the power of 420 million people.

Some Brexiteers still imagine Britain could cut and run and create separate customs treaties with other states. What does the UK have to offer trade-wise to the rest of the world? Little of consequence.

The Labour Party will win the May election and will pick up the pieces as best it can. We have to hope the French will not do a Brexit in the meantime and ‘take back our borders’, throw UK Customs out of Calais and make the UK sort out its immigration problems on its own home soil. Then we shall need to build lorry parks in parallel with our motorways simply to help keep some trade moving.

The only good news in all of this is that the EU budget deficit caused by a ‘hard Brexit’ will be avoided to a large extent and Britain will be saved the expense of paying British MEPs their bloated salaries as we shall play no part whatsoever in EU governance.