If you talk to almost anyone overseas, except those at the right wing extreme (like Trump) or part of a tiny minority of the left, their reaction to Brexit is similar to the formerPrime Minister of Finland. What the UK is doing is utterly, utterly stupid. An act of self harm with no point, no upside. Now sometimes outside opinion is based on incomplete or biased information and should be discounted, but on Brexit it is spot on. So why are so many people in the UK unable to see what outsiders can see quite clearly.The days when Leavers were talking about the sunlit uplands are over. Liam Fox has not even managed to replicate the scores of trade deals the UK will lose when we leave the EU. As to independence, Leavers just cannot name any laws that the EU imposed on the UK they do not like. Since the referendum even public attitudes to immigration have become much more favourable. Instead there has emerged one justification for reducing real wages, for allowing our economy to lose over 2% of its GDP, to allow firms to make plans and enact plans to leave the UK: the 2016 referendum. People voted for it so it has to be done. It is described as the will of the people. Yet few bother to note that almost half the people voted the other way, with those that would be most affected not even having a vote, and that this victory was won by illegal means. All that is brushed aside. But what is really remarkable is the way what this vote was for has gradually mutated over time. Just before the vote, the Leave campaign talked of many ways of leaving, with Norway (which is in the EEA) as one option. They did
