31 January marks the two-year anniversary of the UK’s official withdrawal from the EU. Investment Monitor examines how hard Brexit has hit the UK economy so far.

You can’t restrict immigration without damaging trade deals. / For years the Brexiteers have been in denial about the contradictions inherent to their project. Now they are coming out in the open.

Continuing the letter to Jacob Rees-Mogg, reminding him – he seems to need reminding – of the many new opportunities created by Brexit.

Despite its claims of exceptionalism and the freedom to succeed outside of the European Union, in reality, the UK is no longer in the room where it happens, says former British diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall.

Fishing rows notwithstanding, much of Europe looks on at the UK’s plight with astonishment – and even, still, sympathy.

As expected, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, and his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, have now agreed “in principle” to a free trade agreement. The fine details are still not out in the open, but the political and economic significance of the deal is becoming clearer.

So far, in the first two months of Brexit, the following industries have indicated that they have been harmed: Aerospace; Airlines; Architecture; Art and Antiques; Beer; Bees; Cattle and horse breeding; Charities; Cheese; Chemicals; Cars; Classic Cars; Construction; Cosmetics and Perfume; e-Commerce; Fabrics; Fashion; Ferry services; Film and TV production; Financial Services; ...

Having left the largest internal market in the world, the search is on to give the impression that there are many new trade partnerships out there to compensate for the already very real loss of cross-Channel trade. / At the moment, Britain’s trade with the CPTPP countries is less than our trade with Germany alone.

UK’s recent narrow understanding of sovereignty belongs to a receding Trumpian world.

UK PM Boris Johnson had been wildly happy about his new EU exit deal; then he introduced a law undermining both it, and the last round of trade negotiations. Speaking with two former permanent secretaries of the UK’s EU exit department, Matt Ross asks whether Johnson is applying firm leverage – or deliberately sabotaging the trade talks.

Contrary to recent reports, the European Union knows Britain could walk away and is preparing accordingly.

'It is hard to predict how full Brexit would play out, because this scale of multiple simultaneous renegotiations of global trade agreements is unprecedented – and no country has ever left the EU. It certainly can’t be assumed that Britain is bound to get quick and good deals because it is a large economy.'

If not, and the vote is to exit, it will be no good saying afterwards that “we didn’t understand what we were voting for” – the repeated complaint made by eurosceptics about the 1975 Referendum. By then it will be too late.

A 19th Century trade agenda will decimate the most productive parts of the 21st Century economy.

No deal Brexit is not the end. It’s only the beginning. To the no-deal Brexiters who say, ‘I just want to leave” or “leave means leave”: you do realise that we will be trying to get a new deals the minute we leave, don’t you?

Hostile immigration policies will do untold damage to the UK’s manufacturing industry. It is baffling that the government is willing to implement such a strategy, says Lord Bilimoria.

While Boris Johnson, the likely successor to British Prime Minister Theresa May, takes his country down a path of diminished trade, the European Union is negotiating one of the largest free-trade agreements in the world. One really has to wonder what the "buccaneering" Brexiteers have to complain about.

Beijing has made it clear that it would welcome an FTA with the UK with “open arms” and has stated that it would make a “top notch” deal. However, other influences will come into play to negate that, a point little understood by many UK-China analysts.

Increasingly, doing business with China involves a certain loss of sovereign power. / No matter how appealing a trade deal between Britain and China, it comes with costs. For a start, greater trade with China invariably means larger trade deficits.

Wanting to forge new trading relationships after Brexit and securing them are two very different things.

The EU is one of Vietnam’s biggest trading partners, accounting for nearly a one-fifth of the country’s exports.