It is very welcome news that the German finance minister Christian Kinder has said that the UK has a "standing invitation" to future talks aimed at reducing trade barriers, or "obstacles in daily business life" that have arisen because of Brexit.
But welcome as this is at the moment it is also a trap.
For the government accepting this kind and generous and common sense proposal should be a no brainer but then it has a whole host of back benchers who already believe that Brexit has been betrayed and actually improving trade with our biggest import and export markets is treason.
So not much hope of anything there.
Labour, on the other hand, want to do exactly this kind of thing, but not until they have won the general election. If they move before then the Tories and the media will come down on them like a ton of bricks claiming they are trying to reverse the results of the referendum and rejoin the EU.
It shows how far the UK has fallen that this is a dilemma at all.
The offer would have been far more diplomatic and diplomatically acceptable if it had come the day after the next general election. But at least it is there, that is something.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media
It will always be a problem for as long as "37% of the electorate" is masqueraded by politicians and news media as a majority. 63% of the electorate didn't vote for any kind of Brexit, and had it been an actual constitutional referendum (as opposed to an opinion poll), then the majority 63% would have prevailed. Or, to put it another way, the 37% minority would have failed.
Imagine the UK news media outrage if a trade union strike ballot were organised the same way, and a strike were to proceed on the basis of 37% membership endorsement! It would immediately be denounced as a tyranny of a minority, and undemocratic.