Happy New Year to all.

Suppose Mrs May made a broadcast to the nation. The message is simple, the damage of the Brexit process (not Brexit, we haven’t actually left yet) to the UK economy and society cannot go on any longer. So right now we need to make a choice and she is going to make it for us by flipping a coin - Heads for keep going with Brexit and Tails for let’s just tell our European chums that it’s all been a big laugh and we love them really and want to stay. If it’s Heads she will flip it a second time, Heads for just leave without any deal and Tails for her deal.

What would be our reaction? Surprise? - Yes, Rage? - don’t think so. My thought would be Relief.

The truth is, despite what most politicians and the media tell us, whether or not we leave the EU and on what terms are second order problems.

We have just marked the centenary of the end of the First World War, remembering many millions who died including one million Britons - that was a first order problem. Stopping Hitler - another first order problem.

I happen to believe that staying in the EU - flawed though it is - would be better for Scotland and the UK but I accept there are valid different opinions.

In the short-term leaving the EU would definitely cause dislocation - but we won’t run out of food or pills for the NHS - that’s just scaremongering. In the long run it could go either way. A more outward looking flexible economy might conceivably grow faster than one which is inside a profoundly anti-competitive EU - or it might not. The key thing is we don’t know and all the apparently scientific forecasts are actually just the result of assumptions put into them by their biased creators - they are no more facts than my guess or yours.

What does matter is that we make a decision, stop wasting money on options which are contrary to that decision and wholeheartedly go down the selected path. Forward, sideways or backwards - we could make a success of any of them if we tried.

Such a flippant way to resolve this issue as the toss of a coin might seem daft, reckless, doomed to failure - but in my experience the businesses and business people who succeed are those who make decisions. Yes, they review the facts and weigh the options - but then they make a clear choice and get on with it.

Just look at what is not being done because of the paralysis caused by the Brexit process. The Scottish Government wastes its time on Brexit - hoping that it might create an opportunity for another referendum on independence - when they should be focusing all their energies on hospitals, schools and roads. The UK Government is no better - progress on ordinary peoples’ real priorities frozen by politicians who have no time to focus on the mundane things which keep society and the economy moving.

At the start of 2019 businesses should do the things which matter - innovate, invest, find more customers in the UK and abroad and not be lured into defeatism and inaction.

For politicians it is time to get on with the job. In Scotland our MSP’s should just do the day-to-day things we pay them for - and stop getting excited about Brexit. For the members of the UK Parliament just make a decision - get on with it - and if you can’t do it within 14 days give it back to us, the electorate, and we will decide.

Pinstripe is a senior member of Scotland's financial services community.