Picking up on a theme explored by this blog, Booker today argues that the "no deal" embraced by Theresa May could bring Britain to a halt.

As long as that remains a threat, we may think we know what the result will be this Thursday, but we shan't be able to arrive at a proper verdict on this dismally superficial election for a year or two, Booker says.

At the start of the campaign, he listed four important issues that would not be seriously discussed or even mentioned. The first three were our terrifying national debt, our disastrous energy policy and the horrifying mess of our "child protection" system.

But the biggest issue of all, the one that we were told this election is all about, was Brexit. Yet, all we have really been told is that Theresa May believes she is the only person qualified to get a successful trade deal in the most difficult negotiations of her lifetime. And if she fails, she will simply walk away, on the grounds that "no deal is better than a bad deal".

Booker, as do I, fears that in the coming months we are in for some very nasty shocks as we discover (or confirm) just how dangerously intractable countless issues will prove to be. Among our biggest problems will be Mrs May's decision that we should leave the European Economic Area to become what the EU classifies as "a third country". At least remaining in that would have made our leaving the EU incomparably easier.

Even at this stage, there is a general awareness of at least one issue already, helped on its way by an outspoken speech from Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair. That issue is aviation, one of the areas in which the relentless drive for European integration has enmeshed more closely than most.

Now, every conceivable detail of how our airlines and airports operate is governed by a vast thicket of EU rules. These cover everything from the certification of pilots and aircraft to the allocation of landing slots at airports, from our entire air traffic control system to the freedom of aircraft to fly in and out of Britain at all.

All this, says Booker, we only enjoy as members of the EU. To replace our right to remain within that system once we leave will, legally, be incredibly complicated. At least this might be done if discussions begin as soon as possible, although the day after last year's referendum the head of the International Air Traffic Association was already warning that there was "likely to be insufficient time to complete the necessary processes".

But this pales into insignificance compared with what would happen if we walk away from the negotiations without a deal. We would suddenly find ourselves without any legal authorisation to allow airliners or freight-carrying aircraft to operate anywhere except within the UK itself. Our air traffic with the outside world would come overnight to a complete stop.

This naturally seems so unthinkable that to raise such a possibility at all, as O'Leary has done, is already being described as just "scaremongering", with the corollary that the EU couldn’t possibly be silly enough to allow it to happen.

But that is the inescapable reality we would face if we walk away without a deal. It is not what the EU would have done to us; it would be the inevitable result of what we had done to ourselves. And there's the rub. To suggest otherwise, like so much of what is said about Brexit, is just very dangerous wishful thinking.

For sure, there are mitigation measures that could be taken. In the event of a "walk away", the UK could negotiate aviation agreements anew with all the other "third countries" and some measure of access could be restored. Nevertheless, refusal to deal with the EU means that European airspace would remain closed to us.

As we have charted relentlessly on this blog, this is by no means the only sector which will be affected, which actually makes the a "no deal" scenario into something so unfathomably damaging that one cannot believe that anyone could serious contemplate it.

Unsurprisingly, according to The Times, the "no deal" mantra is causing bemusement "from Berlin to Rome" as politicians and industrial leaders from across Europe hope Theresa May's insistence that no Brexit deal is better than a bad deal is just election posturing and fear the worst if she really means it.

"We know the mantra that no deal is better than a bad deal but I think every bad deal will be better than no deal for Great Britain", said Detlef Seif, head of Angela Merkel's party group on the EU affairs committee of the Bundestag – as retailed by The Times. "I think, and I hope, that these words of Theresa May are just for the British electorate and not for the negotiations", he added.

This, in itself, may be wishful thinking, as the Prime Minister launched her mantra on 17 January 2017 during her Lancaster House speech, well before she decided on her general election ploy.

The Germans don't leave it there, though. Walking away without an agreement would be "a dramatic own goal" for Britain warns Matthias Wissmann, president of the German automotive association (VDA). He says that the economic consequences would be much worse for the British side because there were no facilities in place for border checks on goods and no staff to carry out customs duties, meaning supply chains would be badly disrupted.

The most common reaction in Berlin to Mrs May's talk of being a "bloody difficult woman" in Brexit talks or Jeremy Corbyn’s acceptance of Brexit was one of grim resignation but enduring puzzlement.

Yet being a "bloody difficult woman" is the least of Mrs May's problems. Relying on his work which produced the Seven Basic Plots, Booker hypothesises that Mrs May is trapped in her own personal "fantasy cycle".

This has a clear archetypal structure comprising five stages, starting with the anticipation Stage, when some dark egocentric urge is looking for a focus. Only in the dark recesses of Mrs May's mind does that secret reside but, some time ago, that took her into the dream stage.

This second stage takes over when the focus has been found. Those possessed by the fantasy get ever more headily carried away by it, and for a while all seems to be going wonderfully well. Driven by their dark egocentric urge, they seem to be getting away with it.

The fantasy has a great deal to do with Mrs May's inadequacies when it comes to Brexit. Without a firm exit plan, she has slid effortlessly into the third "frustration" stage, where things have gradually begun to go wrong: first the little things, then bigger things, as reality has closed in on her fantasy.

From there, the next destination is the nightmare stage, where external reality will start closing in on her. Everything starts to go horribly, uncontrollably wrong as their bubble of make-believe begins to collapse.

That Mrs May is locked into the frustration stage will become increasingly more obvious when the Brexit negotiations begin next month. And once she has passed from this and through the nightmare stage, she will enter the "death wish stage".

At that point, Mrs May's entire fantasy will at last reveal what has been its true nature all along as it fatally and irretrievably collides with reality. For her, at least, all will be lost. Sadly, it looks as if she is set to take the whole nation down with her.