Meeting home nations as dicey as Trump for PM

For Theresa May, keeping the four nations united over Brexit is a more familiar political problem than handling Donald Trump, but just as dicey.

Put simply, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland want more say over the process.

Scotland is rattling the cage loudest, which is unsurprising given 62% of Scottish voters wanted to remain in the EU and the ruling SNP spots political leverage.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon went in to Monday's Joint Ministerial Committee meeting of the four home nations in Cardiff demanding Scotland's demands were taken seriously, and left clearly underwhelmed.

She told reporters: "The next few weeks are not going to resolve every issue of Brexit, but in terms of me being able to judge whether Scotland's voice is going to be heard at all in this process ... the next few weeks are very important.

"This is one of the last key opportunities for me to make clear to the Prime Minister that I have to see some movement on her part, and over the next few weeks she has got the opportunity to demonstrate whether that movement is going to be forthcoming."

The SNP wants Scotland to maintain its membership of the single market but its plans are clearly incompatible with Theresa May's stated aim of a clean break.

On Monday Mrs Sturgeon waved her biggest cudgel: the threat of a second independence referendum, but Number 10 maintains it will determine Brexit's parameters.

The Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones was more conciliatory, again not particularly shocking given that his nation returned a 52.5% in favour of leave last June.

But there was no overt Downing Street support for his white paper - jointly written with Plaid Cymru - which the Welsh government had hoped might help shape discussion over labour movements and the single market.

Northern Ireland presents a complex picture for two main reasons: the land border with Ireland and the fractured and fractious political landscape in Stormont.

To wit: the 'former' First Minister Arlene Foster was there as 'acting' First Minister despite have temporarily stepped down from the role pending an investigation into the 'ash for cash' scandal.

It's complicated - and the new Sinn Fein leader Michelle O'Neill was there to further compound the DUP's difficulties.

So is the Joint Ministerial Committee anything more than a talking shop to keep the restless nations on board while the Government cocks the Brexit starting pistol?

Privately you hear those reservations within all the devolved assemblies, but after the Supreme Court ruled that the Article 50 process is reserved (ie not devolved) there is little they can do.

Their greatest leverage will come when the legislative process grinds away during the EU negotiations when the nations have been promised a 'legislative consent motion' over the Great Repeal Bill.

That means they get a vote which gives them a role in the process, even if it won't be allowed to derail it entirely.

That won't stop the SNP making trouble for Mrs May before that pistol is fired.