The changing context of Brexit

Before the Brexit referendum "Project Fear" predicted that a variety of bad things would happen. And their claims may be justified, of course, Brexit is still in the future. But so far it seems that the consequences have almost been the opposite of what the remainers said. 

Already a month ago The Guardian could tell that UK economic indicators defy Brexit fears

Britain appears to be bouncing back from the post-Brexit panic in better shape than expected, after a string of indicators showed growth across the manufacturing sector, the building industry and in consumer spending.

A survey of manufacturers reported a rise in exports to their highest level in two years. Persimmon, Britain’s biggest housebuilder, said customers were flocking back to view new build homes. And grocers enjoyed a 0.3% rise in sales in the 12 weeks to 14 August, the best performance since March.

OECD has revised  UK growth and bactracked on Brexit warning. The same applies to WTO, which now says that UK will escape post-Brexit recession.

And yesterday the Axel Springer chief executive, Mathias Döpfner, said Britain will be better off than the EU after Brexit and "highly attractive" for investors. He expected a short-term downturn, but in three to five years it will overtake other European countries.

In Döpfner´s homeland problems seems to grow. Migration-crisis and diesel-gate are followed by lengthy and serious difficulties for economic flagship Deutsche Bank. The banks shares dropped on Monday to their lowest price in decades. The fall was sparked by news two weeks ago that the U.S. Justice Department had proposed Germany’s largest lender pay a $14 billion legal settlement to close out mortgage-securities probes. Chancellor Merkel is now faced with the question of possible state-sponsored bailout - which would be inconsistent with Germany's attitude so far. 

UK and EU must cooperate to negotiate a Brexit-deal which is as good as possible for both. This is of course a difficult task, but a changing and unpredictable "context" shows the importance of a good future relationship between them.