//NJ, Then how do you explain this:-
Trade between the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region was worth £1.5bn in 2017 - about 0.1% of total UK trade.”//
Jim, OK but when we leave the Eu this will apply:-
Because we trade with countries regardless of whether we have trade agreements or not. For those countries that we do trade with under an agreement the agreement is one between the EU and that country, not between the UK and that country. Our biggest single trading partner outside the EU is the USA, with whom we run a surplus of around £10bn per annum but the EU (and by extension the UK) has no trade agreement with the USA, nor is it likely to have one in the near future. Our largest single trading partner, incidentally, is Germany, with whom we run a deficit of around £20bn pa (of the £80bn EU total deficit).
//Jim, OK but when we leave the Eu this will apply:- //
Yes, Danny. And that’s all but identical to the Chile example we discussed earlier. It is the arrangements for post-Brexit, not the arrangements that exist now.
“From a trade point of view, at least, it always has been in the UK's interests -- and for that matter any other country's -- to be part of a bloc that is as large as possible.”
Indeed it is, Jim. But it depends on the price you pay for membership (and I don’t simply mean the financial price).
“Is there some threshold of defeat that is somehow "acceptable" enough to press ahead to round three?”
What will round three involve, Jim? And who will be the participants? I think it was Albert Einstein who defined madness as repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.