THERESA MAY was due to defend her Brexit plans at an awkward European Union summit in Brussels as we went to press, after having a hastily scheduled dinner with the European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, on October 16th. Yet even as Britain is pressing its partners to move on from a sterile squabble over divorce terms to the more important issue of long-term trade talks, dreams and delusions about Brexit remain strangely prevalent.

Take trade. Liam Fox, the international-trade secretary, once said that a trade deal with the EU should be one of the easiest in human history. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, who had earlier favoured a bilateral free-trade area with Germany that would be illegal under EU law, similarly claimed that trade deals with countries like China, America and India would be done within 12 to 24 months of the referendum. Some Brexiteers still fantasise about reverting to an echo of the 1930s world of imperial preference, through free trade with countries like Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand—apparently ignoring the 45% of British exports that now go to the world’s largest free-trade block, the EU.

Fresh fantasies keep sprouting. Countering claims that a no-deal Brexit would mean rocketing food prices, Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, suggested that Britain would grow more food of its own. Though some farmers hope to do just this (see article), his nod to the land girls of the 1940s encapsulates another curious Brexiteer nostalgia, for a sturdy wartime patriotism which critics of Brexit are lambasted for not sharing. John Redwood, a Tory MP, has called on the Treasury to produce “more optimistic” forecasts, while the chancellor, Philip Hammond, has been accused of treason (despite calling EU negotiators the enemy). When the OECD, an international think-tank, this week ventured that Brexit would damage the economy, Brexiteers noted sourly that, like the CBI business lobby, the OECD takes EU money.

Delusions are not unique to one side. Some Remainers still believe the EU would allow Britain full membership without free movement of people, an idea that has almost no support on the continent. Others who panned the EU’s inept handling of both the euro and the refugee crises now behave as if it were a faultless paragon. Still others who have criticised the project for its relentless pursuit of ever-closer political union are oddly quiet about renewed plans for just that.

Another anti-Brexit dream is of a cross-party group of MPs stopping it. Politics is feverish and Mrs May’s government could fall at any time. Yet a parliamentary vote against a deal might lead to a Brexit with no deal at all, for revoking the process may require the agreement of all 27 other EU countries. Delusions over no deal affect the cabinet, too: Amber Rudd, the home secretary, this week said no deal was “unthinkable”, but Mr Davis called it “sensible security” to keep the option open.

The biggest fantasy of all may be that the shape of Brexit can be fixed solely by Britain, or that at most it needs only an agreement with Germany’s Angela Merkel. The belief that Britain is alone in Europe in having tricky domestic politics to navigate, like the notion that any contentious issue can be swiftly fixed by the chancellery in Berlin, is extraordinarily persistent. As the Brexit talks show, the EU follows cumbersome but legally predictable procedures, mostly led by the European Commission, in any negotiation. It would be a step towards recognising this if pro- and anti-Brexiteers alike dropped their delusions to the contrary.