LIKE Alice in her adventures Through the Looking Glass, in this year’s Walt Disney film, the UK finds itself in a race against time. Unfortunately, as the UK faces the consequences of the Brexit vote, Time is not an amusing character played by Sacha Baron Cohen.

And the race is not to save the Mad Hatter but to try to mitigate the very major economic damage arising from the European Union exit decision.

In any case, much of Brexit Britain could hardly be further from Alice, who was motivated by overseas adventure and looking to the future. Many of the Brexiters seem intent on harking back to decades past, and creating an insular Little England, well apart from the UK’s key trading partners in the EU. Driven by some sort of nostalgia for a time long gone, they are generally very big on bunting but utterly short of ideas about how to go about solving the economic shambles they have created.

Some of those who led the Brexit campaign already seem to have shifted their focus elsewhere, albeit while seemingly still wallowing in what they view as a great victory in the June 23 vote. It was interesting to see former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, the man who appeared to woo so many of the Brexiters, appearing on a stage with Donald Trump this week as the Republican candidate ramped up his efforts in the US presidential race.

However, against this curious and curiouser global backdrop, the UK will have to try its best to tackle the grim consequences of the Brexit vote.

While Mr Farage celebrates and the UK Government sits on its hands, the clock is ticking. Quite loudly.

And the high chances of the UK Government losing its race against time to secure a desired raft of new trade deals, before its long-suffering EU partners see it properly out into the economic cold, have been underlined yet again this week. This time, it was conciliatory but crucially realistic comments from the Norwegian government that highlighted the UK’s big problem on this front.

Elisabeth Aspaker, Norwegian minister of EU affairs, highlighted her view that negotiations with Norway would be a priority for the UK but said a new trade agreement might take a “long time”. She warned a “well-functioning solution” might not be in place “the moment Britain leaves the EU”.

Norway is probably among the most amenable countries, in terms of doing a trade deal with the UK.

So the fact it already considers it likely there could be no such arrangement in place by the time the UK leaves the EU, perhaps about two-and-a-half years from now, highlights the massive challenges ahead.

The continuing lack of any even vaguely convincing reassuring noises from Prime Minister Theresa May, Brexit Minister David Davis, and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson seems somewhat remarkable, even by Wonderland standards.

The Scottish Government this week warned that leaving the EU was, by 2030, projected to cost the Scottish economy up to £11.2 billion per year in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and as much as £3.7bn annually in tax revenues, albeit the range of detrimental outcomes was quite wide.

Presenting the Scottish Government’s analysis, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “This paper shows, in the starkest possible terms, the potentially huge cost to Scotland of being taken out of the European Union and the single market.”

Separately, official figures this week showed, in terms of the difference between total revenue and total public sector expenditure including capital investment, Scotland had a fiscal deficit of £14.8bn or 9.5 per cent of GDP in the year to March 2016.

These figures underline the scale of the challenge the Scottish Government faces in putting the economic case for independence. But at least, unlike the Brexiters, it feels it has a responsibility to set out an economic case if it is asking voters to make a big decision.

The Scottish Government can make the point the UK economic outlook has deteriorated very significantly with the Brexit vote. It could also argue that an independent Scotland within the EU might have a big competitive advantage, in terms of inward investment and trade, over the remainder of the UK.

While the UK Government is faced with a race against time following the Brexit vote, whether or not it realises this yet and even though it does not seem to have moved off the starting line, the First Minister can bide her time.

She can wait for the optimal moment to press the independence case, as the UK Government tries to untangle the economic and political mess arising from the Brexit vote.

US president Barack Obama warned ahead of the Brexit vote that it could take the UK a decade to do a trade deal with the US.

On a trip to Taiwan in 2014, the degree to which the newspapers were dominated by stories about trade deals was remarkable. Then again, you cannot underestimate the importance of such deals when they are so important to your economic future.

The UK has for decades, by virtue of its EU membership, had the luxury of being able to take valuable trade deals for granted. But Brexit Britain, which is rumoured to be likely to start the official two-year EU exit timetable early next year by triggering Article 50, now finds itself starting from scratch.

It may well be an excruciatingly long two-and-a-half years for Mrs May, Mr Davis and Mr Johnson as the UK’s lack of a Brexit plan becomes ever clearer.

However, from the viewpoint of securing trade deals, it will probably pass far too quickly.

You would imagine there will still be plenty of loose ends, and far more questions than answers, when we get to that point at which the UK’s EU exit countdown clock ticks its last tock and the alarm bell rings.