Theresa May cannot ignore the warnings of business and international allies on Brexit disaster, says Joan McCalpine

THERESA May tried to put on a brave post Brexit face this weekend

But there’s unease in the east and it will follow her home from the G20 Summit.

The biggest blow was a 15-page warning from Japan that Brexit could hit its investment in the UK – unless access to the European Single Market is maintained.

Japanese car companies such as Toyota and Nissan came to the UK because they got access to the 500 million consumers in the EU’s “single market”, the biggest in the world.

Now their government warns “Japanese businesses with their European headquarters in the UK may decide to transfer their head-office function to continental Europe if EU laws cease to be applicable in the UK after its withdrawal.”

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The way things are going, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Theresa May warns free movement of people will cease – a demand that certainly puts Britain out of that single market.

Her trade minister Liam Fox has already said he thinks the UK will be out of the EU “Customs Union”, meaning massive paperwork for companies moving goods around.

Her actual Brexit minister David Davis just seems confused, unable to tell MPs this week what a deal will look like.

He could do worse than take heed of the “Letter from Tokyo”.

Japanese companies employ around 140,000 people across the UK.

In Scotland there are 65 Japanese-owned firms, employing thousands.

They include Mitsubishi Electric in Livingstone, Teijin DuPont in Dumfries and OKI Data in Cumbernauld. There are many more.

But this is not just about the Japanese. Investment from the United States is much bigger, accounting for one million jobs across the UK, many of them in Scotland.

American companies are just as keen as their Japanese counterparts to get unfettered access to the EU single market.

Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs has already warned that it may “restructure” its British operations as a result of Brexit.

This is why Obama pointedly said this weekend that the USA’s most important trading relationship was with the EU.

What doesn’t work for Japan and America, doesn’t work for the new kids on the block either.

The Secretary General of the Indian Chambers of Commerce recently told the Financial Times Brexit “would create considerable uncertainty for Indian businesses engaged with the UK and would possibly have an adverse impact on investment and movement of professionals to the UK”’.

This is all particularly bad news for Scotland because attracting foreign investment is our speciality.

The consultancy EY (formerly Ernst & Young) are experts in this field. Their annual survey found Scotland bagged 119 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects last year.

That was a 51% increase on the year before, 2014, which was itself a record.

Scotland is second only to London in attracting these funds.

These investments secured 5385 jobs in 2015 alone, with software and business services particularly strong.

But according to EY, almost three quarters of these foreign investors say access Europe is an important reason for coming.

Unless we can get a deal that keeps us in the single market, many of these jobs will be less secure.

But we did hear this weekend that Brexit will provide employment opportunities for some.

Sir Simon Fraser, former head of the Foreign Office, said the UK government would need to hire hundreds more civil servants to negotiate their way through the mess.

He says more bureaucracy is inevitable.

You couldn’t make it up.