Another day, another Theresa May speech delivered to MPs. This time, it was on the recent Brussels summit and she said progress has been made on the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship between the UK and EU. According to her, there is agreement on 95% of the deal, but the remaining 5% includes how to guarantee no hard border in Ireland. She added that she is unwilling to accept a backstop that could create a customs border down the Irish Sea.
The EU is now willing to consider a temporary UK-EU customs territory for the backstop, but whether her cabinet will agree to the final proposals is still unclear. If they do, May will then face the problem of getting the bill through parliament. There are now five months left until the UK withdraws from the EU and 5% left of the deal to agree. The markets didn’t take kindly to the news and sterling suffered losses against the euro and dollar.
Today we have the CBI industrial trends orders for October and the business optimism index for the fourth quarter of 2018.
