Yesterday the Department for Exiting the European Union alongside the Treasury and HMRC published the first of its Brexit papers that seek to outline the future relationship of the UK and the EU.

While this at least now provides some much-needed detail on what the UK is after as part of the final arrangement we are still a long way off both sides coming to an agreement on this and other issues.

The relationship cannot be divided up into lots of different parts and then dealt with separately from each other. They all interact and directly impact on each other. To allow the UK to have free movement of goods without free movement of persons would undermine the whole European project and offer a green light for anti-immigration leaders in Eastern Europe to follow the UK’s lead.

It may be for this very reason that Guy Verhofstadt, the chief Brexit negotiator on the EU’s side tweeted this yesterday:

To be in & out of the Customs Union & "invisible borders" is a fantasy. First need to secure citizens rights & a financial settlement

— Guy Verhofstadt (@GuyVerhofstadt) August 15, 2017

The truth is that there is at least some value to the paper. While the Commission correctly noted that time is ticking the idea of an interim period after March 2019 will, as David Davis says, give UK businesses time to prepare for a new arrangement and provides some certainty as negotiations proceed.

An interim solution is, however, just that; interim. We are not really any closer today to knowing what a final customs arrangement with the EU will look like and as negotiations stop and start the fantasy may well become a nightmare for Britain.