Faced with an unexpected narrow majority for Leave in the Referendum, The Powers That Be adopted a simple strategy, make such an unholy mess of it that all but the most hardcore Leavers throw in the towel and say, sod it, let's just stay in. This strategy appears to be working, but only marginally.
My preferred option would be unilateral free trade, that's nice and simple, but it's unlikely that a UK government would ever do something that simple and obvious. As a democrat, I've got to accept that there was only a narrow majority for Leave - we have to respect the 48% as well as the 52% - and a lot of those will have voted Leave out of sheer bloody mindedness in response to the endless Project Fear crapola, which was obviously without substance.
I suppose to some extent, a lot of people who are sticking with Leave are doing it because
a) the EU has revealed its true nature, playground bully from Hell and
b) because they enjoy watching the UK government squirm.
Staying in clearly isn't an option either, that just puts us back to square one, and who knows what vicious treatment the EU will mete out if we go back begging to stay in after all.
Therefore, I personally have decided to bow to those greater minds who really have been looking at this in a fair and dispassionate way for a longer time than I have and think we should try to rejoin EFTA (if they'll still have us), also known as the Norway Option/flexcit, stay in the EEA, and fudge everything else. Given how useless our government is at negotiating, at least we are going for a known known.
Will it be perfect? Depends on what you view as perfect. Will it keep Leavers and Remainers equally un/happy? I would guess so.
Or put it another way, had Cameron come back from his last gasp failed attempt at renegotiation in early 2016 and said "Fuck it, that's it, we are triggering Article 50 right now and applying to rejoin EFTA" I personally would have been over the Moon. I don't see why the context changes that.
Or, even more hypothetically, let's imagine the UK had just stayed in EFTA back in 1973, I guess most people would be happy with the status quo, a few Federalist nutters would be clamouring for full EU membership; a few rabid outsiders would be calling for us to leave EFTA and go it alone, but I doubt that I or the vast majority would be that bothered either way.
Debate Magazine
