There’s much shouting going on over how we should be negotiating with the European Union concerning trade and other matters post-Brexit. Yet as Donald Tusk has repeated, there’s really no point to much of it. Arguments about whether we can have some form of bespoke membership of the single Market just aren’t worth having. And given that that’s true then all of the arguments about membership in any form of the single Market, even of the customs union, are piffle. For they all end up meaning the same thing, that Brexit won’t actually happen.
My own prejudices here are clear, I used to work for Ukip, stood as a candidate for them. I am not impartial and insist that we should just leave full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. However, whatever my prejudice it’s still true that there’s no point at all in detailed negotiation. Either Brexit happens or it doesn’t, those are the only two choices available to us:
Tusk told reporters on Friday: “I am glad the UK government seems to be moving towards a more detailed position.
“However, if the media reports are correct, I am afraid the UK position today is based on pure illusion. It looks like the cake [and eat it] philosophy is still alive.
“From the very start it has been a set principle of the EU27 that there cannot be any cherrypicking of single market à la carte. This will continue to be a key principle, I have no doubt.”
You’re, we’re, either in the Single Market or we’re not. And being in means being subject to each and every jot and tittle of whatever stupidity Brussels wishes to impose upon their satrapy of 500 million people. That is, being in the Single Market is to be inside the European Union in all effect. The only difference would be not being able to influence the decisions about those jots and tittles.
Sure, lots of people – some 48% of those who voted – think we should still be in which is fine, difference of opinion makes the world go around. But 52% voted Leave, meaning that leave we should and shall. And staying in the Single Market is not leaving – therefore negotiating about it has no value.
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Because the EU’s position is basically stay in or fuck off. Fair play. We’ll fuck off then.
Everything else is a waste of time.
My argument, and I've had other members of my party (y'know, the fingers-in-ears one) agree with me, is that in our constitution Parliament cannot bind its successors, so if the current idiots makes a mess of leaving, we just fix it up later. Eg, we reformed local government in 1974. In the 1990s we worked out that a chunk of it wasn't working as planned, and changed it. The correct answer May should give when asked "what's the future UK/EU relationship going to be" is "whatever the hell any future government YOU the people chose to put into power choses it to be. If you don't like the current government's policies, kick the ****s out".