It's just a smokescreen for the fact that we're treading on thin ice here.

Our exports go primarily to the EU which accounts for 44% of our trade, leaving the rest of the planet combined with the remaining 56%. Add other European partners like Switzerland and we are looking at >50% here.

Trade with Australia is hardly on the radar. But I guess we can send them some British lamb and they can send us Aussie lamb in return... woohoo!

The UK's trade with the EU is not going to stop because of Brexit - both in and out

BMW is still going to sell cars to British customers - and they are still going to buy them

No change

The EU could try and put some pathetic kind of tariffs on UK exports but that would be cutting off their nose to spite their face

Like Chimerica, the UK and EU need each other

There is something between all or nothing - i.e. has anyone suggested Brexit would mean NO trade with the EU? There will be LESS trade than there was before, pure and simple. BMW's etc will go up in price in the UK because of the decline in the pound. Things won't be easy post Brexit as May has found at the G20 summit:

Theresa May has had a difficult start to the G20 summit as President Barack Obama said the UK would not be the priority for a US trade deal and Japan issued an unprecedented 15-page warning about the consequences of Brexit.

The prime minister had been hoping to pitch the UK as a global leader in free trade during her first major outing on the world stage at the G20 summit in Hangzhou.


However, she was immediately confronted with harsh warnings about the consequences of leaving the EU and diplomatic tensions with the Chinese over her concerns about their involvement in UK nuclear power.
After her first bilateral meeting with Obama, May was warned that the US wanted to focus on trade negotiations with the EU and a bloc of pacific nations before considering a deal with the UK.


This was swiftly followed by a message from Japan to the UK that there could be a string of corporate exits from the UK unless some of the privileges that come with access to the single market are maintained.

The only thing I would label as pathetic at the moment - apart from the entire notion of Brexit itself - is Teresa May prancing around and pretending how the gov't can make a success out of the whole withdrawal process.

The truth is quite the opposite: things will not be better - they will be worse. How much worse we do not know, but hoping that things get noticeably worse as opposed to much, much, much worse is hardly any consolation to us all.

Japan is already stepping up to the plate, having sent a warning that Brexit will mean ditching the UK like some burnt omelette.

A number of European capitol cities are already gearing up for tearing up (and taking over) the UK financial sector which will be guillotined should the UK leave the common market.

The President of the United States is showing us our place in line as a small, insignificant nation compared to the true power that large economies hold, especially the combined EU economy and market.

Are the bookies offering odds on whether Article 50 will be triggered by a certain date? Because I'm quite sure we could be onto a winner here...

The way I read it, it's a negotiating stance. The more she looks like she's serious, and the more other trade agreements can be pushed to the fore, the weaker the EU position is at the negotiating table. In the end what she wants is "EU-lite, free trade and finance, and none of the rest of it. The more it looks like she doesn't need them, the more she can get from them.

And if france looks to get a vote on leaving themselves; they will finally panic. Just it might be too late by then.

Chill turbo. It's still early days and nobody knows what the final reality will be

It's all just an opening gambit ATM

And now the PM has kicked the points style solution to the 'immigration problem' into touch:

G20 Summit: Theresa May ready to block Boris Johnson's point-based migration system after Brexit

She hasn't committed to most of the Leave campaign proposals.

Hmm,

Could have fooled me.

She gave Boris that job so he could screw it up, not so that he could propose things that make him look good. Better stamp on that.

Politicians

Meanwhile Junkers has been winning friends and influencing people (to leave), telling the UK it shouldn't be negotiating trade deals whilst within the EU. Such a thoughtful, understanding man ....

... I wonder what the two word response will be .......

Awful lot of opinion being marketed as fact on here, we should rescue Liz, Kill Philip, then go to the Winchester and wait for all this to blow over.

I fear The Winchester may be at capacity now...


S

Should be a decent atmosphere in there then. Beer and bullshit is preferable to just the bullshit

I think that being as far away from the UK as possible is probably the best bet. For the first time that I can remember, I actually really don't want to go back. I have tickets booked for Christmas to visit my folks, and really don't want to endure the monumental clusterf**k that the UK seems to have become.

So let's open a Winchester in Bangkok instead...


S

I'm of the same mind, it's some of the people, the Kent countryside, and none of the politics and other shite that I miss. Got a Nags Head in Figtree that you're welcome in too

I was there a few weeks back ...... it was business as usual and I scored the 2 weeks of proper summer whooo whooo ....... perhaps by Christmas it might be a different story. Good luck.

First of all EU negotiators are not mugs - it fact we're the ones desperately lacking for professional representation nowadays.

Secondly, our friends representing the EU hold all the cards. There will be no negotiations until article 50 is triggered. Period. Full stop. And rightly so.

Nobody is going to spend time on futile negotiations before the UK officially decides that it's going to leave, which it hasn't done yet. And should the gov't decide to blindly jump into the abyss then our negotiating position will be truly tragic anyway. Lose-lose situation if you ask me.

In fact we're more screwed than we realise as uncertainty is hurting the economy on a daily basis. How can we expect investments when everyone is unsure as to what to expect?

Best to write off Brexit as an absurd idea where people were lied to about the benefits, all of which evaporated the day after as people like Farage came out of their lairs to admit making muppets of leave supporters. Most people were simply misled by a handful of politicians who only joined that side due to personal, political gain, like that clown who believed he could actually be PM.