Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

It all comes down to choices. Choices that the UK felt they didn't have to make since they were the UK and thus too important.

These 'solutions' are nothing new. It was all laid out to them in easy to read graph immediately after the ref result.

The Uk chose the hardest of options as none of the others were worth the choices they would have to make.

And they still think like that. Hence them looking to simply ditch the NIP.

One wonders how attractive a career it is going to be if there is ongoing uncertainty of the UK rejoining the SM or CU in some fashion.

Yeah, same as every other EU country. Not 50k of them though.

So the 2nd Tory politician is mentioning joining the single market. It has to start somewhere and it seems like it has now, the planting of the seed of an idea that become reality later on. In fairness to Hannan (never thought I would ever say that) he was always saying they would be part of the single market. But it seems like he is not intelligent enough to understand what being part of the single market means in terms of the EU membership and being out of the EU.

But Hannan is basically still stuck at his and David Davis's "cherries and cake" 2016 view of what this would mean. The UK will select the single market bits that they like. The EU will accept and acknowledge that UK standards and divergences must be fine because the UK says so. The UK will have the opt outs that it wants, above and beyond Norway and Switzerland, and will contribute and concede less, because they are terribly important.

The only difference I see here from his 2016 fireworks-ramblings is that he now talks about UK joining EFTA. Whereas before EFTA members (and Ireland, Netherlands and Denmark) would have been so impressed by the UK deal that they would have decided to become vassals under UK leadership.

Is this chatter about rejoining the single market an attempt to signal a change in approach, or is it rather that proponents of Brexit realise it's turned out a mess and are trying to save face? I suspect it's the latter.

'Brexit could have worked if they had done this instead...'

Few of them will ever bring themselves to admit that it was a doomed enterprise.

For Hannan, I'm sure that's what it is. His Brexit would have worked and please forget that he has advocated multiple different types of Brexit, including the Johnson variant, over the years.

Similarly, the entire spectrum of Leavers have other (conflicting) visions of how it could all have worked perfectly if others had just believed enough/shouted louder etc. For most of these, including Hannan, I don't see this as any sincere attempt to change anything. Just to explain why it isn't as wonderful as they had promised. Frost running with the "stabbed in the back" line being the most irritating.

I think the Tobias Elwood comments on Single Market are different, even if still being cake-ist. But Elwood is a former Remainer who backed Rory Stewart over Johnson for PM. Perhaps this is a more long term move, with expectation that Conservatives will slowly return to rationalism and he will have first mover advantage. And that he can ultimately "sell" joining the Single Market, but not the EU as a shrewd victory for UK negotiations.

Probably just 'a queue, yesterday'. Could be Dublin!

Probably their stock airport queue photo.

In fairness papers can't be expected to send a photographer down to these airports for a quick photo or to pay a freelance/local paper for one when any auld queue photo will do.