Picking up the pieces

Mr Eisman is known as 'the big short'. He has made millions from betting that company values will go down. Right now he is gearing up for Brexit. He has already bet against the UK banks, no matter the flavour of Brexit, but he is waiting to see if we end up with a hard Brexit. If we do, "the UK stock market's gonna go down."

He says, "You could short anything in the UK at that point. It wouldn't matter. Just throw a dart at it - short it."

Ms Desmond, the chief investment officer at Mondrian Investment Partners' UK operation, manages investments of $60 billion. She has warned that the multimillionaires backing Brexit are all ready to cash in. They made their money in hedge funds and see Brexit as a great opportunity.

As Ms Desmond pointed out, they won't "stick around if things get difficult", and in fact if there is no deal they "will be eagerly waiting out the disaster on the sidelines with their vulture funds ready to pick up the pieces."

Certainly, a hedge fund should be looking after its clients' interests. When Britain hits the rough patch  post-Brexit that everyone - Brexiteers included - has predicted, the fund managers have a responsibility to move investment elsewhere, or as Ms Desmond puts it: "the investment management firms will flee."

With big investors pulling out, industry will hit the skids. After the shake out there will plenty of bargains for the funds to snap up.

Not only that, but foreign investors are gearing up to sue us for millions of pounds in lost profits. If we leave the EU single market then they will have the right to sue the UK government for damages.

We have 95 bilateral investment treaties with other countries. These protect investors, promising "fair and equitable" treatment. Case law indicates that a substantial change in the regulatory regime is unfair treatment. Usually this arises in developing countries, where such changes are more common, but when Spain reduced certain subsidies in 2013 investors sued - two British companies have already been awarded over £100 million. Argentia had to pay investors $1.35 billion in a similar situation.

We still have the chance to avoid all this. Mr Eisman's only concern is that Mrs May might get her deal accepted, saying that the stock market would go up and he would have to pay up on the bets he made against UK banks. A managed Brexit will be painful, but not nearly as damaging as no deal.

Already a number of leading Brexiteers have realised this and now support Mrs May's deal. Let us hope the headbangers won't put a spanner in the works.