A Brexit deal in three weeks? Yeah, right.

I hope I'm proved wrong but I have lost faith in there ever being a satisfactory Brexit deal for this beloved country. Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, has today predicted that a deal will be agreed within the next three weeks. Obviously he knows a helluva lot more about what is going on in the negotiations than I do but is he really serious or is he just playing the latest round in the poker game between the UK negotiators and the Brussels bureaucrats? There have been 101 predictions in the last six months and I suspect that most people have given up believing any of them. It wasn't that long ago that Theresa May said 95 per cent of the agreement had been completed. A mere five per cent was left. Yes, but the last five per cent is wrapped in impenetrable reinforced concrete - the Northern Ireland question. How does Northern Ireland, the only bit of the UK that will share a border with an EU member country after March 2019, stay a solid part of the United Kingdom AND carry on trading with the South without frontier checks? If the UK leaves the EU customs union, Northern Ireland cannot have a special customs union of its own to enjoy continuing trade relations with the South because that would mean the province would be different from any other part of the UK; and that's unacceptable to the charming members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) who retain a vice-like grip around Theresa May's political throat. The Brussels lot says Northern Ireland has to have some form of border arrangement because the northern province will no longer be part of the EU and cannot benefit from EU trading rules unless it is put into a special status. Special to the DUP means not being part of the UK. Thus, impasse, eternal blockage, no solution, zilch, zero, end of life as we know it, or as the DUP knows it. So, Mr Raab, your latest prediction is wonderful news but by next week the newspapers will no doubt be saying "No-deal Brexit gets closer", "Dominic Raab in U-Turn", "Theresa May to be toppled" etc etc. We have been through it all again and again and again. So my plea is, no more predictions. Just get the hell on with it and find a way round the DUP issue before Christmas so we can all celebrate the festivities without having to worry whether the future is doom, doom, doom.