The core choice of all choices is whether politicians think the British public will bear continued free movement. twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/s…
Options are (a) No – so hard Brexit with all that entails, (b) Yes – so EEA is fine, no big numbers of voters care about ECJ; (c) Yes but only if the government lies about it stopping one day – temporary EEA is fine but get ready for endless arguments.
The problem is that (a) is undeliverable without burning every bridge; (b) raises the question ‘why not stay in the EU and have a say in the rules then’ and (c) means Brexit paralysis continues for ever and I mean yes literally for ever until people choose (a) or (b).
And this is before taking into account the views of the EU27 and EFTA, who probably prefer the UK having a good long time-out in (b), marginally, over the UK staying in with its neuroses intact.
Originally posted as a thread of 4 tweets on Twitter on 4 September 2018. View the original thread.