There it comes again... The victim bit again. Who said anything about punishment. ?. There has been continuing cant about the EU punishing the UK ,going on three years now. What the EU said on day one is that outside the EU the deal cannot be as good as inside. Can you identify any quotation from an official of the EU which incites punishment?.(please exclude Mr Farage)who ever said we should not have a relationship with them. You are talking as if we are going to have no trade or dealings with them at all. It is the nature of the relationship which is the sticking point. They want to still have control over us and who we trade with. I'm sure that if we left tomorrow without a deal, trade would continue in some form and very quickly would normalise. Yes there would be a bit of posturing and threatening on both sides of the water, but in the end common sense would take over. There is too much at stake , and surely there is no good reason to try and punish each other
Of course there will be trade, and there will be a new normal between a UK and an EU. .. The new normal might be significantly worse than the current normal. There was trade between the USA and Cuba all through the years of embargoes.
My point is that irrespective of whatever belief spurred people to vote Leave in 2016, they were not agreeing to Leave fully. They wanted a looser relationship.. you queried this
#3 years ago the public gave solicited advice to parliament that they wanted a looser relationship with the EU. The nature of which was NOT specified. #