Do non-European companies really want to have to do a trade deal with 27 disparate & dodgy states or a globally trusted partner?

If you're an international company wanting to invest in and gain access to the European marketplace, what would be your preference in terms of securing the best possible arrangements?

Clearly you want free and unfettered access to trade with the whole of Europe and the EU and EZ (Eurozone countries); so what is the best way of achieving this?

Would it be easier to have to negotiate with 27 or 28 individual countries, all of whom have a veto as well as local issues (perhaps it has important manufacturers operating - and competing - in the same sector for example), and many of whom are mired in corruption from their former eastern bloc pasts...

Or would it instead be easier just to do a deal with one country, through whom you can secure the free and unfettered access you need? A country which, crucially, is a trusted, uncorrupted, financially stable, trade-driven, internationalist partner with strong trading and distribution infrastructure and which speaks the same international business language (English) as you do?

You see, following Brexit, the chances of the UK being frozen out of trade with the EU are vanishingly small, given that the EU enjoys a trade deficit (in its favour) of £106.4 billion a year (2015 figures - ONS). So the UK will have free and unfettered access to the European marketplace post Brexit and, therefore, in order to operate in the EU marketplace, all you would have to do is do a trade deal with a highly receptive UK, rather than the clunking, red-tape infested and highly protectionist machinery of the EU.

Oh and by the way, your deal with the UK would also give you access to the biggest 'customer' in the European union and, almost certainly, Commonwealth countries as well. Do you really need to go to Romania, or Hungary, or Albania?

It's a no-brainer - and it's what terrifies the 'Remain' camp both within the UK and the EU - that the UK will thrive and prosper outside the Union and will then cause other ambitious EU member states to want to leave and take control of their own economies rather than being dictated to by the EU and, as far as southern Europe is concerned, being economically sacrificed on the alter of what is effectively a German economic take-over of the continent.

And, just as a 'by the way' comment, we're also being told of the threat to Sterling of Brexit. The real threat to Sterling is not from Brexit but from staying in, whereupon we will, according to the EU's own Five Presidents Report, be forced to adopt the Euro currency by 2025 at the very latest.

If we do leave the EU the pound will become an extremely safe and strong currency, particularly in comparison to what would then be an ailing and failing Euro as the whole EU project starts to crumble even more quickly than it is doing already.

Thanks for reading.