There are now less than 165 days before Brexit Day on 29 March 2019 and nothing is fixed or determined.

Companies and individuals in the UK are panicking because they have no idea in what business environment they will be working. In the House of Commons on Monday, MP after MP, most from the Conservative backbench, pleaded with Prime Minister May to allow a second referendum so that people will decide, but May was adamant: offering a second referendum, she said, is undemocratic because it undermines the Brexit referendum some years back. The people have spoken and in the last election a vast majority of MPs were elected on the commitment to implement Brexit.

But try as they might, all the negotiations between the EU and the UK have so far failed to produce an agreement. There does not seem to be any hope of an agreement being reached by the EU summit this week.

Business entrepreneurs have simply no idea under which rules they will be operating as from 30 March, so they cannot plan in advance. Basically, the issue is what kind of Brexit will there be. May has said that a bad Brexit agreement is not better than no agreement at all. So it can actually be that at the end there will be no agreement at all and then things will really become complicated.

People have visions of long queues at Dover and other ports, long queues at airports and companies relocating to the continent.

There will be a Commons vote at the conclusion of the negotiations but that vote can go anywhere and May's feeble majority may succumb to a negative vote. Once there, many political outcomes become possible, ranging from a second referendum to May being replaced. The present economic turmoil may become political turmoil and a perfect storm is the result.

The people of Britain who turned on their laptops to watch Monday's sitting had to see hour after hour of a debate that went round in circles. At the end, many MPs simply upped and left and May was left with a very small group on the benches.

She repeated time and again that non-British Europeans have nothing to fear from Brexit and that they will always be welcome but many Maltese who live in the UK are not so reassured. Many of them have been in the UK for years, have not adopted British citizenship and most probably do not have the skills to be admitted under today's entry criteria. Hence a trickle of returnees, another addition to Malta's population, which may become a flood.

We are told that Brexit can be a boon for Malta due to companies relocating here so as to enjoy European passporting rights. So far, there have been rather few of these. The big companies in financial services have relocated to Paris, or Frankfurt. Brexit does not seem to have brought benefits to Malta. And if matters get complicated, such as regards visa policy, we may see a decrease in British visitors to Malta.

This is what underlines the coming EU summit but even at this late hour an agreement may not be reached and we may be faced by a no-deal Brexit.