Oh, and BTW - if, after all that, you still think I'm a remoaning scaremonger peddling "project fear", you'll do well to go away and have a read of submissions published today by the trade sub-committee of the Australian Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade as part of its initial analysis of a future trade deal with the UK.
According to Australia, the UK, and I quote here, is likely to be the "distressed negotiator" from which Australia will be able to extract "significant concessions". But - and this is the worst bit - Australia is going to wait for the United States and Canada to weaken our position EVEN FURTHER before they then move in for the kill.
This is not project fear. This is actual strategy from a foreign country keen to exploit our weakened international status. Published today, if you want to go read all the gory details (you probably should, because if that isn't a reality check for you then I honestly give up).
More project fear mongering. The aussies are keen to get a trade deal with us once we have escaped the EU gulag, and this 'analysis' if it exists at all, is just their way of attempting to start negotiations from a strong position. Theresa May should take note, although its far too late now.
Considering the Aussie economy is outside the top ten, and the UK is in the play-offs we are not likely to be 'distressed' in the trade negotiations. Similarly with Canada, and, when negotiating with stronger economies, whatever deal is agreed will be mutually beneficial and not deleterious to either side, otherwise the deal would never be agreed... unless Theresa and Olly Robins are in charge of course
Ok, so you get that the bigger party should expect to do better when it comes to the UK (hypothetically) negotiating with Australia or Canada. But the fact we are doing badly when it comes to negotiating with the EU is because May/Robbins have handled it badly? Nothing at all to do with the fact that the EU27 have a combined economy which is five or six times as large as ours?
Remainers warned that we would have no chance of securing the sort of pie in the sky deal that leavers promised - because the EU has its own principles to uphold and is economically much bigger and stronger than us. The outcome would be pretty much the same whoever led our negotiations - be it Churchill, JFK or Mickey Mouse. It isn’t the negotiators’ fault for being unable to deliver on an impossible promise - it’s the fault of those who pretended it was possible in the first place (Davis, Johnson, Rees-Mogg etc - the ones who have either ran away from positions of responsibility or never held them in the first place).
May’s big mistake was to spend most of her first two years in office pandering to the Tory/UKIP right and promising the moon on a stick. She should have acknowledged that the referendum was extremely close and that there are huge divides to try and bridge, and aimed to build consensus for something along the lines of Norway, plus a customs union and with some restrictions on freedom of movement. That could then gradually evolve into something more detached over time, when the technology is invented to do so without erecting a hard border in Ireland or turning most of Kent into a lorry park (lol).