Brexit: EU leaders say single-market access for goods a nonstarter

Following up their statement that any proposal from the UK must be workable and realistic, the EU are making clear than one of the options rumoured to be under consideration is not, so the UK need not bother proposing it. As the time for negotiation runs out, the EU is getting less willing to go through the ritual of waiting for the UK to make a self-evidently unacceptable proposal, then reject it and wait for another. Instead, it is emphasising again that the UK agreed some things back in Decemeber and only proposals that are in accord with that are worth bringing to the table.

I thought this account of the Chequers meeting due on Friday is a lovely bit of writing:

An English country house, a polite but inscrutable host and an ill-assorted band of guests, each with a motive to stab each other in the back. Theresa May’s Brexit house party at Chequers next Friday sounds more like the set-up for an Agatha Christie mystery than a cabinet meeting.