Very good point: for all of the cacophony of the Thatcher 'revival' of Britain, the country could not muster an economy as large as France, Germany or Italy. Its vaunted financial services sector has so little faith in the British themselves, it has negligable investments in anything British, with most of its investments overseas, primarily in the US. 

In overseas markets, the British are notorious for being absent from the field of play. They pretty well totally missed out on the China growth story, and people across Asia laugh if you ask them about British products and quality. The British have hung to the skirt hem of the Americans, playing up the 'special relationship', something most Americans struggle to even think about. 

The only wheeze the Brexiteers can come up with is an Empire 2.0, where Canadians, Australians and Indians are somehow Shanghaid into preferential trade agreements with the UK. It is laughable...