IT is 55 years since former US secretary of state Dean Acheson suggested “Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role”. Acheson made his observation a few months before General de Gaulle vetoed the UK’s first bid to find a role within the then European Economic Community (EEC).

The UK’s eventual entry in 1973 appeared to signal a new role within Europe. Since then, the UK has generally helped shape the institutions and practices of the EEC and EU. Acheson would relish the lack of care in finding that role then tossing it away, especially as there is nothing of substance to replace it.

Despite the apparent agreement yesterday to move on, the shuttling between London and Brussels confirms that the search for a post -Brexit role is a back-of-a-fag packet exercise. Look no further than David Davis’s embarrassingly incompetent and alarming performance before the Brexit Select Committee. There is no long-term strategy, no Plan B and indeed, no Plan A. The EU is far from perfect but its architects had a vision for post-war Europe founded on peace, progress and prosperity.

In the UK the Attlee government elected in the landslide of 1945 also had a vision of a better and fairer country delivered through improvements in health, housing and education. Those bold visions contrast starkly with the absence of principle and foresight that characterises Theresa May’s government and its Ulster allies. Where are the Attlees, Bevans and Morrisons when most needed?

This is the age of short-termism and the even shorter soundbite. Where is the long-term vision supported by strategy, planning and investment? The Prime Minister’s address to her underwhelmed counterparts in Florence was a masterclass in empty rhetoric. Machiavelli, who placed expediency above morality, would have savoured Mrs May’s speech in the city of his birth. She spoke of a “great global trading nation” without a clue as to how that was to be achieved. She resembles the authors of the Superman comics rescuing their hero from an airless, sealed box on the seabed: “And with one bound Superman was free.”

Most Brexiters live in the past and doubtless pine for the days of gunboat diplomacy. They fail to recognise that, for the past half century, Britain has retreated from a global role. Sure, there are vanity projects such as Trident and two expensive but useless aircraft carriers. The things that could have made a global difference, such as properly equipped conventional forces and international aid, have been neglected.

The Brexiters are equally deluded on world trade. The balance has switched from west to east and north to south. None of the new economic superpowers owes the UK a living. The Brexiters can go whistle for a preferential trade deal with the United States. What part of “America First” do they not understand? President Donald Trump’s recent words and actions prove the truth of former German Chancellor Helmet Schmidt’s verdict on the so-called “special relationship” as, “so special that only one side knows it exists”.

Britain’s global influence has been enhanced, not diminished, by EU membership. It hugely increased Britain’s attractiveness for investment and as a gateway to Europe. Already, foreign investors are adopting wait-and-see approaches or angling for substantial “incentives” to remain. The jobs and institutions trickling out of the UK may only be the start. Our diminishing world status is underlined by the absence of a single UK judge on the Court of International Justice.

Possibly the real tragedy of Brexit has yet to unfold. The greatest collateral damage will be amongst the working class communities that voted overwhelmingly to leave. Stripped of the protection of EU laws and regulations, many British workers will be exposed to the ravages of neo-liberal economics. Deregulation will progressively reduce wages and security amongst the weakest workers in society. Those living in our poorest communities will suffer most. Claims that the world will beat a path to our door seeking trade deals will prove the cruellest con of all – apart from the weekly £350 million for the NHS, that is.

There will be winners in the post-Brexit low-wage, low-tax, low-job-security economy. In the main they will be the same people who salt away their millions in offshore tax havens. They will be looking to the day the UK becomes a tax haven, laundering even more of the world’s dirty money: a Cayman Islands without the sunshine.

Robert Burns wrote of “Such a parcel of rogues in a nation”. That could equally apply to those who have taken us to the cliff edge. Parliamentary arithmetic, the demonised Tory “mutineers” and assorted “enemies of the people” may yet form a positive, principled resistance. How about a Parliamentary vote of no confidence on the most incompetent administration in living memory? Otherwise, as American writer Matt Taibbi put it, “In a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organised greed defeats disorganised democracy”.