MANY of those in favour of leaving the EU argue the ‘no deal’ option should be kept on the table to pressure the EU into offering a more favourable arrangement.

They see this as being similar to negotiating a business deal or haggling with a market trader, where you can walk away if you can’t reach a mutually favourable arrangement.

However this analogy doesn’t reflect the true situation.

If one walks away from a business deal or the market stall, the status quo remains and nothing changes; one still has the money to try elsewhere.

However, if we walk out on an EU deal virtually everything changes – the arrangements that we did have no longer exist and there are no immediate replacements.

A somewhat better analogy is a divorce.

One may pack a suitcase and walk out the door, but six months or a year later we have to come back and sort the house, the mortgage, the children, the record collection etc.

It is the same with the EU – we will have to negotiate something before we can move on.

DENIS MCALLISTER Lymm