Sure, Boris wants to paint the EU as the bad guy, and he will have quite a bit of success with that, up until Christmas.

But that's not an endgame. Christmas isn't far off.

British exceptionalism seems to have come in several flavours over the centuries :

1. actual Rule Brittania, covering roughly the 19th Century (dominant maritime power THEREFORE dominant trading power) -- not strictly applicable today

2. Britain stands alone against the Nazis. The frame is a bit of a stretch when the enemy is the EU. And anyway; where are the Spitfires?

3. Punching above its weight by taking sides in every European war, with the advantage that an island nation was too troublesome to invade (though only the weather saved them from the Spanish armada) -- but the EU is sensibly one and indivisible in trade matters.

So I see nothing but dead ends in Britain striking defiant poses and walking away from treaties... There will necessarily be humiliating climbdowns.

And it will hurt economically, and therefore be terminally unpopular, by early next year.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}