EUROPEAN Council President Donald Tusk gave Brexit a useful sporting analogy when he met Theresa May last week. “The ball is in now in your court,” he said. Well he’s right. The dispiriting truth, however, is that the Brexiteers are like the wee boy who takes his ball home when he doesn’t like the kickabout score.

That’s putting it politely. What did we learn of Brexit in the past week? When Brexit negotiations minister David Davis says membership of the European single market for trade is “very improbable”, that’s just his personal opinion. When Brexit trade minister Liam Fox claims UK business is “too lazy and too fat”, that just his "view" too. Is anyone in charge?

When Theresa May is asked about the whole catastrofunk, she doesn’t know. Independence supporters should see an absurd irony here. Some of the same people who demanded pristine detail of an independent country before a referendum cannot provide any answers 82 days (and counting) after the Brexit vote.

Will Brexit be any clearer once Article 50 is eventually triggered? The beginning of Brexit talks have already been delayed three times – so how can we have any confidence in the nature of the process that will follow it? Expectations among right-wingers and Ukippers in England are already absurdly high.

In July Davis proclaimed that a new prime minister should “immediately trigger a large round of global trade deals with all our most favoured trade partners”. Exciting! He even set a date for this brave new world: the 9th of September, also known as last Friday. It shouldn’t have escaped your notice that the fabled deals didn’t start and will not start any year soon.

Perhaps they’re just finding their feet? The Government claims it is meeting “stakeholders”, hosting “brainstorms” and “roundtables”, alongside other ridiculous mumbo-jumbo. This is part of an ambitious – albeit contradictory – position of demanding open trade and control of inward migration to the UK.

Nigel Farage gets to bake his cake with European ingredients, kick out European chefs, and eat his cake simultaneously. This isn’t going to wash. The EU27 and EU institutions have been direct since day one that open trade – free movement of goods, capital, and services – must include the free movement of people.

Scotland’s pal Guy Verhofstadt MEP, appointed as lead Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament, adds that such an exemption would be “unthinkable”.

This creates a future conundrum for the Tories: do they side with their traditional corporate allies who want “open trade” or the voters’ displeasure against free movement that fuelled the Brexit vote? It all depends on who will hold power in the negotiations.

The Tory Government faces pressure to end free movement from the right-wing press, its backbench MPs, Ukip, and a substantial part of the electorate. Pushing for a softer Brexit – with open borders and trade – are the City of London, alongside the Irish and Scottish Governments.

The Tories are likely to stay firm for as long as possible. Will the EU face them down? They also have a multitude of pressures from 27 capitals, the EU institutions, and inside the European Parliament. But some of those will seek to exploit Brexit for their own interests.

Senior French policymakers, for instance, are determined that UK financial services are excluded from European markets, if the UK abandons EU trade cooperation.

What happens if the two-year deadline of Article 50 clocks out without an agreement? Davis’ expectation is slightly terrifying: a trade war. Writing this July, he said the UK would “insist on World Trade Organisation rules and levies” for the tens of billions in trade that cross between the EU and UK.

This would mean a 10 per cent tax for cross-border trade, reducing imports and exports, while pushing up the cost of living. It would hit Scotland particularly hard. The Tory Brexit minister is prepared to wreck the economy if they can’t get their own way on immigration, trying to threaten EU partners into folding in the negotiations.

I doubt it will work. Instead negotiations will likely bring these “Pax Britannia” dreams crashing back to reality with a thud. A chaotic coalition of the alienated, anti-migrant, and patriotically British expect a cash boon, control over borders, and an economic expansion. Negotiations will bring none of these.

Instead the Herculean administrative task coupled with corporate pressure will dilute any transformation of UK-EU relations. May will trumpet any deal, presenting the narcissism of small difference as a national victory, just as Cameron did following his talks. The reality could be a small trade off, a hit to the UK economy for a slight tightening of inward migration. Full political influence within the EU, for the rest of the UK, has already been lost.

Where would that leave us all after years of exertion? Sour, divided, collectively defrauded. No one will get what they wanted. UK political leaders will posture. It will leave a dent in the confidence of all citizens who still hope politics can be something so much better.

Michael Gray @GrayInGlasgow is a journalist with CommonSpace.scot