He did go on record as saying the U.K disagrees with tariffs imposed on steel & aluminum & that exports from the EU & UK do not represent a threat to U.S. security.

We have been trying to get that through your heads about Canadian steel and aluminium not being a threat to US security. General motors cited that was one of the main reasons they were closing plants. The high cost of materials now with the Trump tarriffs. You are forcing us to look at other markets to deal with even if they markets are considered threats to the States. Tarriffs only hurt the States not the country that they have been put on.

Tarrifs are an imposition on free trade. They haven't been with us until Trump came along.

Tony Blair wants the vote taken over which really isn't fair to the ones that wanted out of Breixt and voted that way.

They are now pushing that it they do get out it could cost 7% of Britain's GDP. We are talking billions of pds here. Is it worth it??

That's a worst case scenario put about by Remainers, but nevertheless I do think we'll take a big hit which will take years to recover from.

The vote on Mrs May's deal scheduled for 11 December, but cancelled the day before, has been re-scheduled for the week beginning 14 January. Her strategy is to use the intervening few weeks to convince Parliament that it's her deal or no deal as the EU are not going to re-open talks.

Is it worth it?? Yes, everyday of the week it's worth it. Mark, they sell more to us than we sell to them, that's a winning hand. If you piss the Brits off, you'll get the enemy of your nightmares, as there's nothing that unites us more than somebody dictating to us, or trying to take the piss. Pete, I know you adore BIG BIG BIG government and I think you missed a golden opportunity not defecting from the army and going to live in Soviet Russia.

Actually it was an ecomomist that said it here, not someone even from Britain.

LONDON — Politico reported the other day that the French European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, had named her cat “Brexit.” Loiseau told the Journal du Dimanche that she chose the name because “he wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go out, and then when I open the door he stays in the middle, undecided, and then gives me evil looks when I put him out.”

If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have come to London right now, because there is political farce everywhere. In truth, though, it’s not very funny. It’s actually tragic. What we’re seeing is a country that’s determined to commit economic suicide but can’t even agree on how to kill itself. It is an epic failure of political leadership.

I say bring back the monarchy. Where have you gone, Queen Elizabeth II, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Seriously, the United Kingdom, the world’s fifth-largest economy — a country whose elites created modern parliamentary democracy, modern banking and finance, the Industrial Revolution and the whole concept of globalization — seems dead-set on quitting the European Union, the world’s largest market for the free movement of goods, capital, services and labor, without a well-conceived plan, or maybe without any plan at all.

Both Conservative and Labour members of Parliament keep voting down one plan after another, looking for the perfect fix, the pain-free exit from the E.U. But there is none, because you can’t fix stupid.

The entire Brexit choice was presented to the public in 2016 with utterly misleading simplicity. It was sold with a pack of lies about both the size of the benefits and the ease of implementation, and it continues to be pushed by Conservative hard-liners who used to care about business but are now obsessed with restoring Britain’s “sovereignty” over any economic considerations.

They don’t seem to be listening at all to people like Tom Enders, C.E.O. of the aerospace giant Airbus, which employs more than 14,000 people in the U.K., with around 110,000 more local jobs connected to its supply chains. Enders has warned the political leadership here that if the U.K. just crashes out of the E.U. in the coming weeks, Airbus may be forced to make some “potentially very harmful decisions” about its operations in Britain.

“Please don’t listen to the Brexiteers’ madness which asserts that ‘because we have huge plants here we will not move. …’ They are wrong,” he said. “And, make no mistake, there are plenty of countries out there who would love to build the wings for Airbus aircraft.”

I understand the grievances of many of those who voted to leave the E.U. For starters, they felt swamped by E.U. immigrants. There are reportedly some 300,000 French citizens living in London, which would make it one of the biggest French cities in the world. I had a drink with a member of Parliament in the bar in the House of Commons on Tuesday, and as we sat down he whispered to me that “not a single person working in this whole building is British.”

I also get the resentment of Brits at having regulations set by faceless E.U. bureaucrats in Brussels. And I get their resentment at the globalized urban elites, who those in the rural areas here believed looked down at them. And I get the squeeze on middle-class wages here that gets blamed, unfairly, on the E.U. and immigrants the way President Trump blames Mexicans. I get all of that.

But I also get what it means to be a leader in the 21st century. And it sure doesn’t mean asserting your sovereignty over all other considerations or breaking out of the giant E.U. market, where the U.K. sends over 40 percent of its exports, without a serious national discussion of the costs and benefits.

What do the most effective leaders today have in common? They wake up every morning and ask themselves the same questions: “What world am I living in? What are the biggest trends in this world? And how do I educate my citizens about this world and align my policies so more of my people can get the best out of these trends and cushion the worst?”

So what world are we living in? For starters, we’re living in a world that is becoming so interconnected — thanks to digitization, the internet, broadband, mobile devices, the cloud and soon-to-be 5G wireless transmissions — that we are becoming interdependent to an unprecedented degree. In this world, growth increasingly depends on the ability of yourself, your community, your town, your factory, your school and your country to be connected to more and more of the flows of knowledge and investment — and not just rely on stocks of stuff.

Over centuries, notes John Hagel, who currently co-heads Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, business has “been organized around stocks of knowledge as the basis for value creation. The key to creating economic value has been to acquire some proprietary knowledge stocks, aggressively protect those knowledge stocks and then efficiently extract the economic value from those knowledge stocks and deliver them to the market. The challenge in a more rapidly changing world is that knowledge stocks depreciate at an accelerating rate. In this kind of world, the key source of economic value shifts from stocks to flows.

“The companies that will create the most economic value in the future,” Hagel says, “will be the ones that find ways to participate more effectively in a broader range of more diverse knowledge flows that can refresh knowledge stocks at an accelerating rate.”

And yet Britain is ruled today by a party that wants to disconnect from a connected world. The notion that the U.K. will suddenly get a great free-trade deal from Trump as soon as it quits the E.U. is ludicrous. Trump believes in competitive nationalism, and the very reason he is promoting the breakup of the E.U. is that he believes America can dominate the E.U.’s individual economies much better than when they negotiate together as the single biggest market in the world.

The second thing the best leaders understand is that in a world of simultaneous accelerations in technology and globalization, keeping your country as open as possible to as many flows as possible is advantageous for two reasons: You get all the change signals first and have to respond to them and you attract the most high-I.Q. risk-takers, who tend to be the people who start or advance new companies.

In the U.S., who is the C.E.O. of Microsoft? Satya Nadella. Who is the C.E.O. of Google? Sundar Pichai. Who is the C.E.O. of Adobe? Shantanu Narayen. Who is the C.E.O. of Workday? Aneel Bhusri. Hello London? The best talent wants to go to the most open systems — open both to immigrants and trade — because that is where the most opportunities are. Britain is about to put up a big sign: GO AWAY.

The wisest leaders also understand that all the big problems today are global problems, and they have only global solutions. I am talking about climate change, trade rules, technology standards and preventing excesses and contagion in financial markets. If your country wants to have a say in how those problems are solved — and your country’s name is not America, Russia, China or India — you need to be part of a wider coalition like the European Union. The U.K. membership in the E.U. has given it an outsize voice in world affairs.

And there’s just one more thing the best leaders know: a little history. Trump is fine with a world of competitive European nationalisms, not a strong European Union. So is Vladimir Putin. So, it seems, are the Brexiteers. How quickly they’ve all forgotten that the E.U. and NATO were built to prevent the very competitive nationalism that ran riot in Europe in the 20th century and brought us two world wars.

Sorry to be so despondent, but I went to graduate school here on a Marshall scholarship from the British government, was married here and started as a journalist on Fleet Street in London. I like the place. But this is not the reasonably competent British government I grew up with.

It’s being led by a ship of fools — a Conservative Party bloc that is now radical in its obsession with leaving Europe and a Labour Party that has gone Marxist. If the people here can’t force their politicians to compromise with one another and with reality (there’s still a glimmer of hope that this might happen), there is going to be a crackup of the British political system and some serious economic pain. This is scary.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Trump has already said that he will put the screws to Britain over any trade deals he makes with them. That also means keeping the tariffs on their steel and aluminum. Myself, I wouldn't make any trade deals with the States until Trump is out of office. Today he threating Mexico again by saying if the drugs don't stop coming in he will put tariffs on their auto industry and if that doesn't work will close the border down. He also wants Canada to stop having any trade dealing with Cuba. Of course if he goes after Mexico's car industry or closes the border if will hurt Americans far more than it will Mexico. Food prices will go through the roof and vehicles will cost more in the States. I won't even get into the 5 million jobs it will lose for America.

Canada is now also thinking of not carrying on with the new NAFTA deal because of the tariffs on steel and aluminum and the lost auto industry that kept them in the deal.

You haven't mention the 2 trillion more debt that he has incurred since giving the big tax break to the rich. Who's going to pay for that?

The only thing Trump has managed to do is divide the country to a new extreme.

A delay to 30 June only if all 27 EU States allow it, otherwise we're out on 12 April, an alternative compromise could be 22 May. At least a delay gives us more time to sort something out, even if after all this time that's a forlorn hope.

Mrs May's thinking is that her deal (thrice rejected but getting closer each time) will be approved by Parliament as the exit date gets closer. You've got to admire her stickability. 

They are reporting on the news here that if you leave without no deal that it is going to cost you dearly in the pocket book and then went on to mention all the things that it will effect. It didn't sound great.

I agree, Major will have other opinions I'm sure. Most of those waving "No Deal, No Problem" placards have no clue what it means. 

It was announce last night that May will probably have to embrace the Labour party to get anything through to pass.

Do you still have any factories in operation in Britain like Steel mills, car plants, oil production, furniture and clothing manufacturing or are you reliant right now only on the EU for these things?

Somehow, without me noticing, you Tommy have become the wisest member on this site, usurping Shula who is absent most of the time anyway. PBA is a little too anti-Trump even for me while Major is too much of a toady when pontificating on his idol.

Your comments are more often than not, wise and well-considered, except when you're trying for a reaction on the Royals. What happened?

We are currently suffering a similar situation here in the colonies re: Obama-Care. Do we throw it out completely or fix it? When you own your own home you have to contemplate making repairs. Would you fix the plumbing, or tear the complete house down?

Where the similarities are Tommy is Britain doesn't know where they will be if they leave or stay in the EU as you didn't know where you would be when healthcare was first introduced under Obama. But you guys know now what will happen if Million all at once lose their Healthcare. Trumps plan of eliminating it completely and then trying to come up with something new down the road just won't cut it for both Democrats and Republicans because they both know after the 2018 elections that healthcare was one of the main deciding factors. Both sides now want it and so they should because it's a right, not a privilege.

The two big issues you have now is the Insurance costs and the cost of Drugs. Many of the Demo's are saying the same drugs are cheaper in Canada so we should buy the drugs from them. If you did, and only if you did, many think that is would force your drug companies to lower their prices because they would now have to compete where they don't have to before.

I'm not sure how your Insurance works but do know it seems very expenisive to the average person and beyond reach to others. Insurance must also cover existing medical problems or that would also leave too many people out of the loop. For the insurance, the cure may also mean the need for more competion between companies to lower prices. You need companies that would charge the same rates no matter which State you reside in big or small. Auto insurance has come down because of more competion so hopefully the same would work for Health insurance.

As you said, do you fix the plumbing or tear the complete house down. For me that would be an easy decision and I can't see why it isn't the same for Trump other than it has Obama's name on it.

And Mark stop you bag licking, it's becoming noticeable.

He's not my idol Mark, that's a silly statement. I don't idolise any politician as I'm too busy hating 99% of them. I see him as a barrier against real politicians and I do get dragged in to supporting him against TDS, which I suppose makes me appear to like him far more than I actually do but as I have mentioned, he did delay the relentless, global decline into socialism.

The relentless descent into farce continues, as the government is now forced to gear up for European election in May, which will cost GB 100 million. She's off to lick a few arses in Brussels now and beg for another extension to article 50 to the end of June, which the EU politburo won't give her and insist she accepts a much longer date, which she will accept and on and on and on we go in the hope the people lose hope and resign themselves to permanent membership, which the EU freebooters will then insist costs us a few billion more, which our gutless masochists will agree on, as many of them and the civil service have jobs awaiting them in Europe when they finish in Whitehall.