Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Single market or world market?

Euro Realist Newsletter / photo on flickr
Despite the British electorate voting to leave the EU, some politicians still seem to think that somehow this excludes the so called single market.

Since the outcome of the vote to leave the European Union on  June 23rd, remarkably little seems to have happened. Something called Article 50 has emerged as a mechanism for starting the process and this has yet to be 'triggered' by someone. Some individual has taken the UK government to court to sort out whether the Prime Minister should or indeed can, press the exit button or does Parliament have the right. It doesn't inspire much confidence in much happening.

I  suspect that the voters who voted to leave the EU expected the UK government to do just that and leave lock, stick and barrel. I  doubt whether many voting to leave thought it would take much more than posting a letter of resignation and cancelling the membership cheque. Maybe to add a note that in future we would make our own laws, spend our taxes on our projects, take the EU starry flag off of everything from car number plates to passports ... oh and reclaim our assets such as fish in our territorial waters.

Remarkably little seems to have been planned for an 'out' vote; our government like the rest of the EU   probably regarded the referendum as 'rubber-stamping' the continuation of EU membership so there was no plan B.

So where do we go from here. Well the rest of the world is not a bad start. In the next few blogs we will outline some options.


.


No comments: