In early October some positive noises emanating from both Brussels and London on the prospects of a Brexit deal being done saw the pound sterling beginning to firm up relative to the euro.
On Tuesday 9th October, £1 was trading at over €1.14 on FX markets.
News headlines indicated that London and Brussels wanted to dampen down speculation that a early deal was imminent.
One Wednesday 10th October the euro was worth 87.3 p sterling, thus moving gently away from the 90p red zone that puts mushroom growers, and other Irish agri-food exporters, in jeopardy.
With the Scottish First Minister also saying she wanted a backstop for Scotland if Ireland gets one, and Northern Ireland's ex-first Minister demanding to see No. 10 's new proposals re the border situation, one can rightly discern that we were fast approaching some sort of endgame - on this phase at least.
Cut to the end of the month, the big Brexit summit came and went, nothing was concluded either way, only that more time might be needed in the transition phase, and the 499 km frontier that is the border was still the major sticking point, or la pierre d’achoppement as the MIchel Barnier might say.
Meanwhile sterling was holding pretty steady at €1.13 which would indicate that the money markets haven’t suddenly lost confidence in some sort of deal being achieved.
The whole focus now has swung to the big Brexit summit just before Christmas - might it all be done and dusted by then?
