Brexitwatch: how the UK can have its cake and eat it

As members of the EU, we are able to trade freely in the richest market in the world. We can travel to, study in, work in, and retire to 27 fairly nearby democratic countries.

But not only that. The UK has special bespoke deals on a whole host of things – we are not in the euro, we are not in the Schengen area. We get a discount on the sum we should be paying into the EU, we have special opt outs in the areas of fundamental rights and freedom, security and justice, etc. In other words, we are ‘HAVING OUR CAKE AND EATING IT’.

But Theresa May and the Brexiters plan to throw away this unbelievably good deal. Instead, they are demanding all sorts of impossible arrangements like being in the Single Market without Freedom of Movement or leaving the Customs Union but having ‘frictionless trade’.

To the (confected on the part of the better-informed) outrage of the Brexit fanatics, the EU has made clear on numerous occasions that none of this is going to happen, but still the UK has no plan B.

Even now, though, there is a way of having our cake and eating it. Cancel Article 50 and stay in the EU. If we are foolish enough to leave, before long we will be begging to be let back in. But never again will we get a bespoke deal as good as the one we have now.

*Thanks to Elkhart Public Library, Indiana for this mention for my book - 'Disaster!' https://myepl.org/epl/index.php/39525/