Well I apologise for calling you a nutter, but in fairness you were pretty much calling me a liar at the time, so let's just draw a line under it.
Now, you take a particular view of the matter of Jamaican bananas and whilst I don't necessarily agree I can't see anything to be gained from debating it so far after the events. The fact remains that at this point in time it would be quite possible in a post Brexit market to rebuild both the Jamaican banana industry and our trading relationship with that country.
Having said this, my point was rather wider than just Jamaica and included all commonwealth countries - I think I specifically mentioned the oil refinery in Trinidad , but I think I also said that I could think of many other examples.
You refer to the "evil EU empire" , but that's not really the point here. In point of fact I would regard that phrase as quite apt since you raise the matter, and I would expect that you would not. I do hope that discussion of that question will soon be one of historic and acedemic interest only, but that's for another day.
I think the more pressing issue is the future of world trade as far as Britain is concerned, since we are in my opinion going to be leaving the EU one way or another, and it's only a matter of how much more fuss there'll be before that happens .
It's only to be expected if you're a former civil servant that you'd take a certain view of present and previous policies and stances, but they are all essentially political aspirations , whether they arose in truth from politicians or Whitehall mandarins. Of course they are backed with rational sounding justifications because so many are employed and given so many resources to produce them.
In fact it's a very civil service thing to quote previous postings with numerical references to prove points, and I don't knock you for that- I merely note it to demonstrate that you may come from a particular angle because justifying public policy is probably as habit forming as anything else.
However, and given that such policies are fundamentally political , they don't often correspond with the realities or practicalities of the world . Politics don't solve problems you see, they nurture them because they are the raw materials with which they manipulate the public consciousness to produce personal advancement and power.
It's no good then writing essays which justify such policies or protect the reputations of the people and departments who produced them because that can only perpetuate the harm they have done in the real world and impede the solutions . At some point we must DO something to take advantage of the opportunities which Brexit will provide because simply predicting various doomsday scenarios about it won't get us anywhere.
So, whether your post was fact, opinion , spin or a mixture, no it hasn't changed my perspective upon a much wider issue which is actually more about nationalism than economics , but nonetheless presents huge economic and social benefits to Britain and its people.