Sunday 12 June 2016

A matter of trusting David Cameron...

Logic and popular opinion seems to be moving toward the notion that if Britain leaves the EU it will stay in the single market. So what that means is trade mostly stays the same, our regulations will be mostly unaffected, and we most certainly will be exempt from ever closer union. The risks are manageable and it's not the sudden death the Remain camp expects it to be. Regular readers will have seen this table below a number of times. It roughly details what an EEA based Brexit means for Britain.


That status is as good as guaranteed should we leave since it is an article of existing law. It's a bit more complex than that which is why we have a comprehensive Brexit plan but please, let's pack it in with the "uncertainty" nonsense.

At this point anyone saying "we do not know what Brexit looks like" is offering up a lazy excuse. Not least given all the information now in the public domain. We know far more about Norway's relationship with the EU than what the EU has in store for us. We do not even know if the EU can survive.

In this, our Prime Minister is leading us up a blind alley. He does not know which way the EU will leap next - not least because the EU doesn't either. His only argument is that he has secured a "reformed EU" and a commitment that we are not subject to ever closer union.

But since there has been no treaty change and no institutions will be modified there is no guarantee of that. The UK's leading authority on EU issues says these reforms are not legally binding. The agreement may be an instrument of influence, but if circumstances demand it of the EU, the commission may disregard it.

And so the choice is as thus. We can either vote to end ever closer union while retaining all of the benefits of the single market (what Mr Cameron set out to do), regaining our influence on global bodies, with a genuine unilateral emergency brake on Freedom of Movement (which Mr Cameron failed to get) - or we can take a gamble on whatever the EU has in store for us and take David Cameron at his word. The latter sounds like the more reckless gamble to me.

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