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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots and Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Katie Balls and I'm joined by James Forsyth.

James, we're back talking about Brexit.

It really feels like the previous years where it dominated the headlines the past week or so, with the Brexit deadline slipping.

And Boris Johnson warning, as we discussed last night, of the likelihood of no deal.

And that is a strong suggestion of number 10, that this is very likely unless something changes.

We've heard from Emmanuel Macron today, the

French president, who is viewed by many on the UK side as one of the real blockers to getting back

to the agreement the UK thought they had last week. So what did Macron have to say and what does it

mean? So Emmanuel Macron said, and no prizes for guessing, he was taking a pop out here, but he wasn't

trying to

have his cake and eat it. Now, I think we can expect a bit of this kind of rhetorical

sparring at this point in proceedings. I thought the most interesting thing was, was

Erstor von der Leyen, the Commission President, trying to say both that this ratchet clause,

the UK would be able to use it too. So e.g.

If UK standards were higher than EU standards, it would be able to use it, which is definitely

a clarification from what people had previously thought the proposal was. And also,

on the line, trying to insist that this clause would not undermine the UK's sovereignty.

So the UK would have the sovereign right to choose whether or not to upgrade its standards.

Just if it chose not to, the UK could adjust the terms of the UK's access to a single market.

Now, I think this is interesting and I think it is another reminder that she is one of the more

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