What the grim reality of a ‘bad-tempered’ Brexit means

David Davis and Liam Fox were adamant leaving the EU would be easy. But with talks deadlocked, a no-deal scenario is horribly likely

A little over a year ago, David Davis was confident that Brexit Britain would soon strike new trade deals across the world. They could be negotiated and agreed without the difficulties and delays of which Remainers warned. All parts of the global trade jigsaw would fall quickly and neatly into place. "So be under no doubt," the Brexit secretary wrote in an article for the ConservativeHome website in July 2016, "we can do deals with our trading partners, and we can do them quickly... I would expect that the negotiation phase of most of them to be concluded within between 12 and 24 months. Trade deals with the US and China alone will give us a trade area almost twice the size of the EU, and of course we will also be seeking deals with Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, the UAE, Indonesia - and many others."

Around the same time, international trade secretary Liam Fox predicted that a free-trade deal with the EU, giving us continued access to EU markets after Brexit, "should be one of the easiest in human history". His fellow Tory, the hardline Eurosceptic John Redwood, also saw no problems in realising this great reconfiguration of British interests around the world. "Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy - the UK holds most of the cards in any negotiation," he declared.