What’s been happening? The issue of what will happen to the Irish border after Brexit continued to weigh on the pound yesterday. Additionally, the Cabinet’s rift over the split from the EU widened further, with Theresa May denying claims from Chancellor Philip Hammond that the UK would pay the €50 billion divorce bill without any guarantees on trade. Meanwhile, Brexiters are accusing the Prime Minister of trying to use the Irish border debate to force through a soft Brexit, with Jacob Rees-Mogg yesterday suggesting in Parliament that May’s red lines needed another ‘coat of paint’ as they were beginning to ‘look a bit pink’. On top of this, markets were further disheartened when David Davis, the UK’s Brexit secretary, gave a confusing admission that there were no individual impact assessments into the result of Brexit upon different sectors of the UK economy. Davies had claimed a few weeks ago that there were nearly 60 such documents that went into ‘excruciating detail’, so markets were left confused as to whether or not the UK government has actually prepared for the impact of Brexit. After some early losses, GBP/EUR was able to end the day marginally higher thanks to disappointing Eurozone data and the strength of the US dollar. Markets ignored positive comments from European Central Bank (ECB) official Yves Mersch, who claimed the Bank should fix an end date for the quantitative easing programme rather than leaving it open-ended. GBP/USD ended the day having recovered most of its losses since the morning, although still lower overall. The US dollar was boosted by a solid reading from the latest ADP employment report, which suggests that the labour market remains on a firm footing. | 
