Blunt. And correct. Absolutely nothing else is carrying on as usual, so the UK continuing to stick to this one deadline is irresponsible.
Sure, contacts are continuing. But I started to annotate the EU's draft text yesterday, and just in the first 40-odd pages there are fundamental policy choices to be made - on the ECHR, ECJ, competition rules, state aid, states owned enterprises.
And that's not just about a UK-EU deal. All trade deals involve fundamental choices. Decide on the approach, discuss exactly how you want to be bound by treaty. Consider your own interests. The EU's 400 page draft still has huge holes.
That's fine say the ultras. No deal, no problem. But no deal is a problem. There's an entire domestic program of work to be carried out, from getting Dover ready, the new powers for regulatory agencies, to different arrangements for Northern Ireland.
To treat the December 31 end of Brexit transition period as unmovable in the midst of the greatest peacetime crisis in living history looks like stubborn ideological purity verging on negligence from the government. No talk of "progress" changes that. /end
