Australia always spooks me. It’s so English — and it so isn’t. Maybe that’s what has foxed the poor fools in Britain now struggling to convince themselves that after we leave the European Union we can slot straight back into the days of Empire and pick up where we left off.

“Empire 2.0” was an unkind way for civil servants to sneer at the idea, but when you listen to the kind of Tory backbencher who insists on conversion into Fahrenheit and still favours the double-breasted suit, and to a whole nest of commentators in the pro-Brexit media, you really do get the impression of a cadre for whom Imperial Airways, Pathé News and the old white Commonwealth feels like only yesterday.

It wasn’t only yesterday. It was three generations ago. And it wasn’t the common market that put paid to our post-imperial family of nations; it was Britain’s slow relative decline, our dominions’ advance, and then the Second World War.

I’m in Australia now so while Theresa May prepares to trigger Article 50 in the week ahead, let’s look at the opportunities opening up for UK-Australian trade as we British go “out into the world” in two years’ time.

Funny, isn’t it, how in this new cyber-age when you don’t physically need to be there to get a sense of what’s going on, you somehow still do. Land at Sydney; hire a car; dawdle through the suburbs, the bungalows and double garages and the glorious purple-flowering tibouchina; and set off down the south coast of New South Wales, through Illawarra country, a land of green fields, little lakes, fat cattle and gentle hills. Listen to local and national radio as you drive along (on the left, mind); tarry for coffee at roadside places like the Fitzroy Falls General Store where I stopped yesterday, selling (like every roadside place) “the best pies in town” . . . and you’ll soon accept that this is just about as British as Australia gets.

Yet within a few hours of starting to soak up this country, you don’t need to read anything, you don’t need the internet and you don’t need to be told for it to feel patently obvious, for reasons you’re unable to articulate, that the question “So what do you think about the new free-trade deal your prime minister has promised Theresa May?” will meet a mild, friendly but uncomprehending stare. They hardly do think about it. They’d be happy with it if they did, but it doesn’t figure large in the Australian imagination. And with good reason. The figures are anything but large.

Care to guess the percentage of Australian exports that go to Britain. Ten? Five? Three? It’s 1.4 per cent. Three times that amount goes to the rest of Europe. UK exports to Australia are about 1.3 per cent of our total; four times as much goes to the Netherlands alone. Ah, you say, but that’s because the EU has strangled bilateral trade between our countries. A glance at the longer-term trends will put you right.

For at least a hundred years Australia has gradually been turning to its own backyard, and to the Pacific, for the bulk of its trade. The country’s exports have been shifting too, from agricultural products to raw materials like minerals. None of this has much to do with the Johnny-come-lately EU, though Britain’s accession certainly gave the trend further momentum. In the decade before we joined, our exports to Australia halved.

“Three things we Aussies can’t forgive you for,” the columnist and broadcaster Richard Glover said to me yesterday. “Singapore; turning away our butter and lamb; and putting us in the ‘Other Passports’ queue at Heathrow.” Well, the fall of Singapore and the immigration channels at Heathrow we can do nothing about. We certainly could get our butter and lamb from Australia but I shall be relieved not to be the Tory MP for Derbyshire Dales when that happens.

It’s trade deals with China, Japan, Korea and other Asian and Pacific partners that the Australians are really focused on. Over the past half-century Australia’s trade with Asia has risen from less than a third to more than four fifths of her total. Nothing — and certainly not Brexit — is going to reverse that trend.

I spoke about this to an Australian government politician. He was toeing the line on UK-Australian trade. “We’re very excited about it,” he said. Asked to explain why, he was clear — exports to, not imports from, Britain: Australian wine, beef and fresh produce. “And imports from the UK?” I asked. “Cars, maybe?” he replied. “Land Rover Defenders — oh no, you don’t make those now. Look, free trade is a positive for all sides. When friendship and self-interest coincide, isn’t that good? But it’s a negotiation. And the symbolism matters. We do like you Brits, you know.”

It struck me that the offer that the Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull made to Mrs May so smartly after last year’s EU referendum was not so much a significant new development in UK-Australian trade prospects as a neat piece of diplomatic footwork by the Australians. Post-Brexit, their country was always going to want a decent free-trade agreement; they’re already pursuing such a deal with the whole EU, a bigger trading partner and investor. But they really do like us, and we them, and at the G20 summit Mr Turnbull spotted his new British counterpart at a moment of vulnerability and was in there like a flash with what was basically just a good headline for them both — and cost him nothing.

Study Australian reports and you’ll notice a difference between their account and the Brexiteering British papers’ version. Here in Australia, Mr Turnbull was described as seeking the same deal with post-Brexit Britain as he’s pursuing with the EU as a whole: in other words, “Don’t worry, Brits, we won’t leave you behind”. Readers of British newspapers, however, will have gained the impression that we’re now well ahead in the stakes for Australian favours. And all for 1.4 per cent.

When you’re buying a property and the estate agent’s blurb showcases the whirlpool bath in the master bedroom, but reads thinly as to any other selling point, be afraid; they’re scraping the barrel. When you’re buying Brexit — and by Thursday morning you will be — raise an eyebrow if you hear “a new free-trade deal with Australia” advertised among the opportunities now available to a go-getting, global Britain.

It isn’t high on anyone’s list at Fitzroy Falls General Store. It shouldn’t be high on yours.