Britain will once again be the great motor of free trade and has the opportunity to maximise returns from this. Expect Theresa May to trigger a round of trade deals with all our most favoured partners, and the negotiation of most to be concluded within two years. This will provide massive markets for our exports and cut costs for our manufacturing industries. Companies have got to stop thinking about exporting as an opportunity and start thinking about it as a duty.

That paragraph is an amalgam of recent comments made by cabinet ministers. It’s the nearest I can get to an explanation of the government’s strategy for trade and commerce. It makes no economic sense. On balance, I find that alarming.

Let’s start with a