@Paul. Well, like it or not that's my honest assessment. Remember, as a remainer, I'm coming from the perspective that the best deal we have is the current one. The other factor is I'm not a dealer or negotiator, although I've been in the position where I contribute to and observe negotiations closely. I think there's no hard and fast rule about walking away from a deal. Most deals I've been involved with come down to a cost v benefit analysis of options, although sometimes other factors come into it such as trust, credibility, references or personal dislike, but that's also a cost/benefit consideration of a qualitative rather than hard quantitative measure. If no-deal provides a worst option than the other on the table, even if you don't like the other it may be stupid not to accept it if you have to do something (although many organisations mandate that the do nothing option is always used as a comparison). For example, I was once asked to produce a quote to modify a software product for a potential customer. I didn't want the work for resourcing reasons so I put generous contingency on at every stage, with a price that I (and the sales person ??) thought was too high for anyone to accept. The company was so desperate to get a new system as they'd messed up their own development that they accepted it without any haggling on price! On another occasion (one I wasn't directly involved in) a software house under quoted for a number of projects because of pressure from a business partner and consequently got into financial trouble. The business partner offered the sw house a deal to take over their business. The sw house MD and major shareholder didn't like it because of the circumstances and refused it, but he lost all his investment, all the employees lost their jobs and the customers of both companies were left with incomplete systems - a classic lose, lose, etc situation. I see Brexit a bit like that, one could walk away but it would cause immense damage to all parties and their people, everyone knows that, so no sensible person wants do it ... and if one compares it with the current deal ...
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