AFTER three weeks and one day for party conferences (Lib Dems, Labour and Conservatives get a week each, the Scottish Nationalists get 1 day), we are now back to the proper job of running the country.

I missed the Conservative conference, choosing to go to Taiwan instead, to learn more about the peculiar problems in the South China Sea that could affect us all. I’m not sure I missed very much in Birmingham – Boris’s leadership bid, a bit of Abba’s Dancing Queen and, more importantly, an acceptance that we have all had too much of austerity. Finding an end to the difficult cycle of Labour’s overspend on public services, leading to huge fiscal problems, followed by Conservative sorting out the public finances, but leading to underinvestment in public services, is a cycle we need to end. But it takes agreement and that looks unlikely with the current state of politics.

This week beings yet more crunch time negotiations on Brexit. By the end of this week, we should see the Brussels proposals and be getting closer to an agreement. I have absolutely no doubt that we will find an agreement and this will be brought back to Parliament to be decided.

The so-called Chequers proposals are far from perfect. But as far as I am concerned, they are the best fudge anyone can come up with. I’m not happy about services, but I am happy about the Irish border and the adherence to the common rule book, meaning our export fluidity is secure. I am delighted that we can do trade deals away from the EU’s customs union.

The problem will be just how much other MPs are prepared to give in order to get a deal through Parliament. If MPs stick rigidly to their red lines, it is unlikely that a deal will get through the parliamentary process and that will take us back to square one. Without parliament agreeing on anything, we end up in the default position – that we leave the EU at 23:00 on the 29th March next year and go straight to WTO terms.

Whilst some think that is the best way forward, most do not and there will be profound implications on our manufacturing industry, as indicated by, amongst others, the automotive industry.

We are heading into the end game on all this. It will be nice to get back to talking about something different for a change.