Post-Brexit imbroglio: Life will go on in the United Kingdom

TO hear it said, it is either Nirvana or Armageddon ahead for Britain. Stories abound of a looming "no deal" Brexit on March 29 - at which point, some argue, everything in Britain will collapse as the country tumbles out of the European Union. The scale of Prime Minister Theresa May's defeat last week - 432 to 202 - helped foster a sense that the whole British political class has lost its way.

In any case, hardline Brexiteers look forward to a complete break with Brussels. This lot, mostly old folk, remember a time when their country was outside Europe. They think their country will be better off under World Trade Organization rules and free to make trade treaties with the rest of the world as it suits them. There seems an element of nostalgia in their thinking. They seem to have persuaded themselves that the European-settled countries of the Commonwealth such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand are waiting - indeed, besides themselves in anticipation - to do trade deals with a new and reinvigorated "global" Britain. So, when Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson speaks of Britain reverting to its global status by establishing naval bases in Asia and the Caribbean, he is pandering …