The settlement on divorce of the UK from the European Union is going to be huge.

As the second biggest contributor for 40 years the UK is entitled to at least 35% of the assets of the EU, which are to be liquidated and paid over to H M Treasury.

As providers of the seed start up funds of the European Central Bank they probably need to return to the UK government in excess of 50 per cent of that bank’s assets.

Brussels will find this hard to achieve while undergoing the loss of UK income from the end of March 2019 and will leave the people and commercial enterprises of the nation states little money with which to continue to buy goods and services from the UK, or anyone else.

So leaving the trading arrangements out of the debate until after they have decided how much they are going to pay the UK and on what payment terms in extreme folly.

They must surely relate the two deals, interest payable on money due to the UK could be related to tariffs and relationships going forward.

Sue Doughty