It’s not enough for Theresa May to say that if she doesn’t get a bespoke UK/EU free trade deal outside the Single Market and the Customs Union, she will walk away and risk the imposition of tariffs on both sides. She has to mean it — and be believed.
Such rough talk from her supposedly ultra-cautious Chancellor gives her much greater credibility in such a stand-off.

But Mr Hammond’s change of tone is not just a negotiating ploy. As he also pointed out to his German interviewers: ‘Since the referendum, we have seen, on the European side, movement away from the UK positions . . . to things that are anathema to the UK: more political integration.’

Some of that ‘movement’ would now be causing political mayhem in the UK, if we had not already voted to leave. Here are just four examples.

Last week, details leaked of an EU White Paper suggesting Brussels be allowed to impose taxes directly on member states, to include a levy on CO2 emissions, an electricity tax and an EU-wide corporate income tax.

Last month, the European Court of Justice ruled that British laws allowing the security services retention of bulk data on calls and emails would not be allowed to stand as they ‘exceeded what is strictly necessary’.

Also last month, Brussels ruled that all members of the Single Market had to impose a requirement that every off-road vehicle — every quadbike, every golf-cart — had to be covered by insurance for ‘third-party injury and damage’. Our own Department for Transport said that it ‘opposed measures which impose an unreasonable burden on the public’ but that it would have to abide by the new rule until Britain exits the EU.

And, only a few days ago, Brussels ruled that even motorists who break the law by driving without insurance should be protected if their car is damaged — so law-abiding drivers face an increase in insurance bills to cover that cost.

It is only because we are leaving the EU that these four power-grabs — proposing new EU-wide taxes; adversely affecting MI5’s ability to protect the British people; creating a totally new overhead for farmers and families playing around with quadbikes; and driving up the costs of running a car — have not caused an even sharper spike in the British people’s hostility to our membership.

David Fuller's view

That is what the bureaucratic EU does – it makes silly nanny state rules which damage free enterprise, slow GDP growth and increase unemployment.