IMF meddling on Brexit is scandalous skulduggery

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Its analysis starts from the static assumption that the EU would be in any fit state to dictate anything after the loss of its second biggest economy and leading military power. It states that any new trade deal with Britain would require unanimous assent of all EU countries, raising "considerable political risks".

This is true in a narrow sense, but you can equally turn it on its head. If any of these countries attempted to wreck Germany's trade relationship with Britain, they would further poison the internal chemistry of the EU itself.

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Be that as it may, there is a dishonesty in so much of the talk on trade. The IMF says Britain's commercial arrangements with 60 non-EU economies - now under the auspices of the EU - would lapse automatically, and would have to be renegotiated. They know full-well that this is a canard.

These deals could be switched easily enough under the principle of "presumption of continuity" enshrined in international law. All they need do is to sign a document of continuation in force, an administrative procedure.

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In my view, Italy's finance minister Carlo Padoan was closer to the truth this week in warning that Brexit could set in motion powerful centrifugal forces, risking the disintegration of the bloc. It would be all the more imperative to the EU to behave with restraint.