Theresa May is promising an extreme, damaging and undemocratic Brexit – and she has no mandate to do so

Britain is set to try to become the Singapore of Europe

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech on leaving the European Union at Lancaster House in London (AP)

No more Theresa Maybe? Maybe. There was certainly some welcome clarity in what the Prime Minister said, although her message was, though clear, equally extremely unwelcome.

She is promising an extreme, damaging and undemocratic Brexit as a policy aim, rather than an unfortunate outcome of negotiation – and there is no mandate for her to do so. We know that nothing will stand in the way of reducing migration and removing any role for the European Court of Justice – not even severe damage to the British national economic interest.

The terms she is talking about were not promised by the Leave campaign in the referendum. Indeed, Ms May goes so far as to suggest that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, in which case the UK will be thrown back on world trade rules, the worst possible outcome for these talks, and something that no one voted for on 23 June. Within a decade the City of London, the car industry, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and our food and drink industry – to take the most egregious examples – will suffer a progressive loss of investment, loss of jobs, loss of profitability and, thus, loss of prosperity for millions of British families.

As decisions are taken by banks for their next big expansion, they are much more likely now to make their next move in Frankfurt. For the carmakers, locations such as Slovakia or Romania will seem even more attractive. Incremental investments in new plants will be lost. The loss of migrants from Europe will raise costs for British business, and further reduce profitability. When the Prime Minister and the Chancellor talk euphemistically about a “new economic model” for the UK, they should say what they mean – an ultra-low-tax economy with few if any funds for welfare, school and health services, relaying for its success on a massive programme of deregulation and destruction of workers’ rights (despite Ms May’s promises to the contrary) and a race to the bottom on corporate taxation. Britain is set to try to become the Singapore of Europe.

Yes, some of the ambiguities and the “cake-and-eat-it” strategy have been swept away; but some chunks of wishful-thinking pastry remain on the prime ministerial plate. We now know that the UK cannot “remain a member of the single market”, though we would still like financial services and the auto industry to somehow be inside it. We know that Ms May wishes to retain the Common Travel Area with Ireland, but simultaneously take control of the UK-Ireland border, the only land frontier with the EU.

We know that she would like early settlement of the issue of the rights of EU nationals in Britain and British expats in Europe, but that is contingent on the rest of the deal, and not an absolute unilateral pledge on the UK’s part (which would be the right thing to do). So Europeans in Britain remain bargaining chips, disgracefully.

We know that UK membership of the EU customs union will go, at least in its present form, though we might be “associate” members of it. What body will adjudicate on any disputes about the way these new arrangements with the continuing EU will work? It would have to be a supranational body, even if it is not the European Court. And, while the current subventions to the EU budget have been ruled out, smaller subscriptions or fees for membership of elements of the EU are still on the table.

Perhaps most telling of all, Ms May has committed her Government to obtaining the consent of both houses of Parliament to the eventual terms of exit. According to the spin, though, the option to remain within the EU will not be on the table. For Parliament and people, that is unacceptable. She should, of course, have pledged a referendum for the whole of the British people on such a momentous move, just as the people had a say last year and in 1975 on the UK’s relationship with Europe.

The Prime Minister’s rhetoric tried to summon up Britain’s glorious past as a freewheeling trading and imperial power, suggesting for a moment that the Commonwealth could be a renewed economic force in the world. The ghosts of Raleigh and Drake, of Rhodes, Joe Chamberlain and Imperial Preference were flitting around Lancaster House as she told some no doubt dismayed diplomats and industrialists that her “bold”, “global” Brexit means leaving the UK’s largest single export market in favour of striking new deals with exciting new partners from New Zealand and the US.

Those new deals will almost certainly be more about goods and services, and that is far from suitable for a country such as Britain where three-quarters of its exports are in the service sector, not manufacturing. Service sector agreements usually work best as a single market arrangement, where professional qualifications and movement of people are important elements; that is going to be extremely difficult to secure. In science, in higher education, in pharmaceutical research, in tourism and much else, the movement of people is even more important than it is in goods. It has taken decades to secure that with our closest geographical neighbours; it is unlikely to happen any more quickly, if at all, with nations such as China or India. In any case, our trade with those countries is far smaller than with Germany or France, and would take decades to approach the same volumes and value.

Defiant, but destructively foolish, Ms May promised more certainty, and she has delivered that: for it is more certain than ever that she leading the country and her party into a certainly disastrous economic future – and will ignore the popular will.