I've welcomed the news that at today's Cabinet, ministers agreed to significantly step up planning for a "no deal" Brexit.
They approved £2bn to go to government departments to prepare, should the UK leave the EU on 29 March without a formal agreement. They also agreed to 140,000 letters being sent out to businesses providing further information. These are both the right and responsible things to do.
It's important not to allow scaremongering about a clean global Brexit to go unchallenged. The think-tank Open Europe have published a calm and useful rebuttal here
Meanwhile we await to see whether sufficient changes can be made to the EU Withdrawal Agreement to make it acceptable before we vote on it in mid-January. A sensible proposal has been set out to remove the need for the "backstop" provisions, here
To my mind, the ball is in the EU's court. If they do not choose to make the modest changes we are seeking to provide legal reassurance we will not be trapped in the backstop indefinitely, we should make preparations for clean, global Brexit.