It's time for leavers to grow up.

I've noticed that Twitter threads debunking the WTO Brexit option have now become something of a cottage industry. They are all the rage these days. It doesn't do any good though because we are not actually dealing with people who respond to facts. We are dealing with a belief system.

Certainly it helps to raise awareness among those who are not intellectually subnormal but the people who most need to listen simply won't. They are not thinking it through and they are oblivious to the breadth of EU integration and just how much the EU really does.

That's because most of what the EU does is "invisible government". That which you'd never know existed unless it concerned you directly. This ignorance, however, is shared equally among remainers and leavers.

That is why remainers can tell us with a straight face that we never lost sovereignty. The provides the legislative frameworks for everything from maritime surveillance through to food safety and waste disposal. Its tentacles spread into every area of technical governance.

This is what many of us long time eurosceptics have been warning about for decades. We find that policy desperately in need of modernisation and overhaul is not actually any longer a member state competence.

And this confusion stems from the fact that we have never really been clear on exactly what the EU is. Some see it as a political alliance, others see it as a trade bloc and others see it as a multilateral forum. Except it isn't. It's a government.

If we'd had an honest referendum the question really should have been "Do you want the UK to remain a subordinate of a supreme government for Europe?" That way there would have been no doubt that we knew what we were voting for.

Only when you understand exactly what it is you are dealing with can you adequately forge a policy response to something like the Brexit vote. Here we have to ask if we can realistically rip up the treaties and expect governmental systems to work as normal. The answer is no.

Just about everything that is traded relies on a chain of authorisations and certifications and if the paperwork is not in good order then trade simply doesn't happen. UK bodies capable of authorising goods for circulation in the market are no longer recognised by the EU. There is nothing in WTO law that compels the EU to do so. The EU is actually obliged to apply the same controls to the UK that it would to any nation without formal trade agreements.

Both sides here have inherent contradictions. If remainers are right in that we maintained functional independence then why is leaving so hard? And if leavers are right about the extent of EU dominion, how can leaving possibly be easy?

Recognising the situation for what it is, we face a long and complicated process of unravelling systems and uncoupling our statute book from the the EU. There are two ways to do this. Carefully, and... not carefully.

Now if the EU were a monstrous dictatorship engaged in murder, torture, disappearances and mass censorship then we would quite obviously rip up the treaties and tell them to shove it. But it isn't. The EU post Brexit will still be an ally.

In fact, it will require a great deal of cooperation from the EU to ensure we do this properly and that we continue to have good relations after the fact. That is not likely if we walk away causing enormous damage to both parties.

Brexit need not be a zero sum game, and an amicable departure is entirely within the realms of possibility. Absolutely nothing is served by a hostile and careless exit, not least because in the long term we end up grovelling back to Brussels for a trade deal.

This is the point that the ultras cannot seem to grasp. No deal cannot stay no deal. We cannot function on WTO terms alone and nobody else does either. Trade is substantially more than lorries full of baked beans going through the Eurotunnel.

Driving the extreme approach are two sets of ideas. The first being the hostile kipper nativism that will see us revert to cavorting druids, death by stoning and dung for dinner. The second being the Tory ideology - which is actually worse.

The Tories are informed by an adolescent minarchist doctrine which hopes to minimise and simplify government. This is the dogma of centuries old economic philosophers from times before internet governance, e-commerce and cyber terrorism.

The reason we have "big government" is because the world is a billion times more complicated than it was in the times of Adam Smith. Even government at its most efficient would still necessarily be quite large and expensive.

We have elaborate systems to prevent food contamination and money laundering. We have systems to prevent nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism. Systems to ensure fisheries are sustainable. Capital adequacy rules to prevent another banking collapse.

It doesn't matter if you don't like EU regulation, the fact is, if you're doing away with it, you still need something to replace it with, and simply copying and pasting EU rules does not work. They are active regulatory systems.

It really should be obvious by now that 40 years of technical, economic, social and regulatory integration cannot simply be wished away. Brexit is a process, not an event, and we cannot function without alternative arrangements. It's time for leavers to grow up.