Another day passes where a Brexiteer politician has said something inconclusive and open ended and the media fills space looking for clues. Today it is the turn of David Davis who suggests that we might pay for single market access. The short answer is that we will pay into the EU budget for a long time to come and may always pay for participation in a number of EU programmes and agencies. There are more than 40 EU decentralised agencies, some of which are expendable, others vital.
It has never been the case that Brexit was going to save any money worth writing home about and what we don't spend on Brexit itself will be spent on rebuilding domestic governance capacity as we gradually take back control. We will not have a Brexit dividend and the NHS will not see a penny of it.
This reality has yet to permeate the eurosceptic bubble. Peter Bone told the BBC this evening: "People will be absolutely outraged if we came out of the EU and then carried on paying them £15bn a year, £20bn a year, whatever the figure is - no I don't think it's going to happen. In that very hypothetical case people will be exceptionally upset about it. But it's just not going to happen."
The only thing he is right about is that people will be absolutely outraged. Kippers will be outraged because they are always outraged about something. And then there will be the remainers who presumably knew full well to begin with that we wouldn't be saving any money.
Reaction on Twitter has been the usual incredulity from the leave crowd, pointing out that Canada, to name one among many, has "access" to the single market but does not pay into the EU budget. But then they do not have full access nor do they participate in any of the joint programmes. It should also be noted that Canada has never been in the EU. The UK has, and consequently we have commitments and obligations going far into the future. Readers wanting a more elaborate explanation would do well to read the Leave Alliance monograph on this very subject.
And if I sound bored, it's because I am bored. I am utterly sick to death of saying these things not least when this is actually news to Eddie Mair who remarked this evening on PM that we didn't get to hear this level of detail during the referendum.
This was in conversation with Mark Littlewood of the IEA - they who blew one hundred thousand euros on a Brexit plan so embarrassing they had to bury it. Except that we very much did hear this level of detail, conveniently ignored by the Toryboy cock-smokers of the IEA - and the BBC. That is why Littlewood still holds the childish delusion that once we leave the EU we can wind the clock back thirty years to use only British standards and expect the same level of market access.
In fact, all of this has been known and set out in great detail for some years now - and as each day passes and another reality of Brexit manifests itself, we can only look on in bemusement. The one truth they're all trying to avoid is the one the Leave Alliance had nailed from the outset. If we want to maintain the same level of trade without erecting too many crippling barriers and harming the economy then we must have a phased withdrawal - and whether they care to admit it, the EEA is the only game in town that covers (nearly) all the bases.
The only reason they won't admit it is because everything they believe, without exception, is wrong, their entire case for Brexit is pathetic and they campaigned on a pack of lies. Now they suck up the consequences. What fun!
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