Well I vividly still remember that one interview in 2019 or so, where an economic expert was being asked about the implications of a no deal hard Brexit.
He just told the baffled audience: "Well, the Brits better start then eatings lots more of fish, because the majority of it gets exported to the EU and this won't happen then any longer."
This man was absolutely right.
Seems to me all pretty obvious if you stop to think about it.
Why did the fishing and farming industries feature so prominently in Leave propaganda and in the Brexit negotiations, while the industries on which the British economy depends -- banking, and financial and professional services, out of which so many Leave backers like Rees-Mogg, Aaron Banks and Rees-Mogg had already made their fortunes -- barely get a look in?
In one word, "distraction," at least to my mind. Brexit's financial backers aren't interested in the farming or fishing industries, other than that they're picturesque national icons.
They're interested in a deregulated financial services market, which works out well for the whole sector. If -- for example -- Deutsche Bank's London offices can't now handle particular business on behalf of non-EU client, then that moves to their Frankfurt or Paris offices, while London handles that bank's European business on behalf of non-EU businesses that's better done outside EU oversight and regulation.
A great deal more significant to the British economy (and a lot of people's personal wealth and a lot of other people's jobs and livelihoods) than farming or trawling, and a good deal more politically important when folks aren't pretending.
So, spend all the time negotiating about people like farmers or fishermen or Ulster Unionists, about whom no one in the government or the City gives a toss, but it's red meat for the right-wing tabloid editors, while you quietly get away with reduced regulation and oversight of the things you do consider worth worrying about.
That works for the EU, too, since the Tory right's vision of a deregulated Singapore on the Thames in which EU satellite and correspondent offices can, when convenient, do business they couldn't safely do in the EU must have obvious attractions for many EU banks.
One of the things I hate most about Brexit is that it's reminded me of a world I thought I'd put behind me -- I know how these people think, and I'm quite good at thinking that way, too, which is why I had to get out for my self-respect and sanity.
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