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Christian Odendahl of the Centre for European Reform in Berlin said the new coalition government will tread carefully and try not to upset the new French president. "Germany does know, and I think the FDP also knows, that Macron and France are incredibly important to Germany and the stability of the European Union, now with Britain out," Odendahl said.

Writing for the Centre for European Reform, Camino Mortera-Martinez says much of Catalonia does not want independence. She urges Rajoy to consider radical constitutional change, giving more devolved power to every region of Spain.

Camino Mortera-Martinez, at the Centre for European Reform, says the time has come for a major constitutional overhaul in the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy:“What is happening in Catalonia is not a case of a state denying the democratic rights of its people. It is the product of increasingly radical separatism and a constitutional framework that is too rigid to accommodate those demands.”

Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, believes the EU will wait until the US Trade Commission rules on last week’s decision, probably early next year, before showing its hand: “But the EU will also have a choice. It could see this as an opportunity to step in and demonstrate to the British the benefits of being members of a big market and a strong trade policy, and to expose the Brexiteers and their inability to act. On the other hand, they might decide this is a good opportunity to hang the British out to dry and teach them a lesson, exposing how vulnerable Britain is going to be in a post-Brexit world.”

Ms Leadsom, an ardent Brexiteer, told the Centre for European Reform (CER) fringe event she would remain in the cabinet “as long as the Prime Minister wants” after she diverged from Tory policy by saying the UK would take back control of its “money, borders, laws” by its official exit from the bloc in 2019.

On the threat of a Trump trade war, Simon Tilford at the CER warns the White House's escalation is just a taste of things to come for post-Brexit Britain: "Brexiters assume Britain will face a benign international environment once freed from the EU to take advantage of open markets elsewhere. They take for granted that the UK would be able to rely on the US underwriting the global trading system. This was always naive, but has become delusional with the election of Donald Trump."