JUST when you thought Brexit was over we have another fraught vote in the House of Commons.

We are now in the final weeks of negotiating our future relationship with the EU. We have already legally left.

The outstanding negotiations are about settling our future trade relationship with Europe.

I have always felt that it would all get sorted at the end of the process and it looks that way again. The sticking points for us are fishing and state aid. There has been much progress and agreement.

And it has always been the case that there is a tension between leaving the EU and maintaining the common travel area between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Without a trade deal, there will be a border down the Irish sea and that is really unacceptable to us.

So we need all powers of diplomacy to be exercised. There are those who think that the EU has no intention of agreeing a trade deal with us. I do not agree.

Whilst the bureaucrats in the European Commission may want to punish us for leaving the great European project, that is not true of the member States.

When push comes to shove Angela Merkel wants to make sure she can sell German motor cars here. Given the economic damage inflicted by Covid, it would be an act of selfharm for the EU not to do everything it can to strike a deal.

So we push on. It will be fraught and tetchy.

But we will get there.

And British business is ready to face the challenge. It remains the case that Brexit will be far less of a challenge to us than Covid-19 has been.