No deal is often better than a bad deal. Not with Brexit

IN MOST negotiations, the maxim that “no deal is better than a bad deal” makes perfect sense. If you are buying a car, you must be ready to walk away or the seller has you over a barrel. The way to drive a hard bargain is to persuade him that he must offer you a good deal or there will be no deal at all.Theresa May has made this commonsense principle the foundation of her talks with Brussels over Britain’s exit from the European Union. “No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain,” she said in January last year, setting out her red lines. With less than eight months until Britain is due to leave the EU, and only about four months left to reach an agreement on the terms of its exit, her government is still stressing its readiness to depart with no deal in place.