Fighting talk from Phil Hammond, who tells German paper Die Welt he will make Britain the tax haven of Europe if the EU refuses to agree a reasonable Brexit deal:

“If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term. In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people are not going to lie down and say, too bad, we’ve been wounded. We will change our model, and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged.”

As everyone obsesses about Theresa May’s plan, worth remembering that Brussels ultimately decides the deal on offer. This is more like it from Hammond in terms of Britain’s negotiating strategy: we can give the EU plenty of carrots to give us a good deal – tariff free trade with the UK market for example – we can also give them a few sticks too. Ideally Britain would become the tax haven of Europe anyway…