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Speaking to Bloomberg, John Springford claimed Theresa May's best chance to avoid MPs voting down her final Brexit deal in Parliament would be to present it as soon as she comes back from Brussels with an agreement. Mr Springford argued leaving as little time as possible between the two crucial events would give Brexiteers in the House of Commons less chance to scrutinise her job.The Deputy Director of Centre for European Reform said: “Time is going to force her hand. She will have to put something before Parliament and the deadline is thought to be January the 20th.

Sam Lowe, a trade expert at the Centre for European Reform think tank, said: “If, as it appears, the UK is close to accepting the presence of an Northern Ireland-specific backstop, albeit one they wish to supplement with a whole-UK customs union, then this is good news for the withdrawal negotiations. However, it will create problems for May with the DUP.”

John Springford, Deputy Director of Centre for European Reform, said: “Time is going to force her hand. She will have to put something before Parliament and the deadline is thought to be January the 20th. “The big problem that she faces is she can try to soften everything and bring everyone together with some fudge." 

At the end of last month, the Centre for European Reform, an independent think tank with offices in London and Brussels, put the number at £500m a week.

“He is surprisingly isolated in Europe, he’s not talking to Hungary and Poland, he’s trying to isolate them and reinforcing the idea that the French do not like the Central Europeans,” said Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform in London.

Now researchers in Europe are using it to construct a virtual Britain where 2016’s Brexit vote didn’t happen to determine whether that decision has already had a cost. Those who have used it include economists led by Benjamin Born of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, investment bank UBS AG, the University of Sussex’s Trade Policy Observatory and the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank devoted to European policy.

For more details on the minutiae of the political declaration and its importance within the withdrawal deal, a recent piece by the think-tank the Centre for European Reform is worth a read.

"If the Republicans do well, then across Europe, people will be thinking Trump is not just a passing phase," says Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based research organization. "People will start to think actually this is a secular change in American policy and America's view of the outside world, and we're going to have to adapt to the fact that America may not be in a position or be ready to help Europe in a crisis."

The shrewdest London-based observer of Brussels is Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, who said: “If I had a vote I would got for Merz. I met him long ago and was impressed. He knows a lot about Europe and could help Macron with EU/euro reform.”