Brexit means Brexit, but the devil is always going to be in the details. All you can say for sure is that the UK’s “simple” in/out referendum on continued membership of the EU was anything but and has left the nation and its politicians divided. Remain supporters point out that a 48.1 to 51.9% margin of victory was never a ringing endorsement and works out to be just 37% of those entitled to vote. They point to misleading Leave promises and outright lies and the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland both returned clear “Remain” majorities. Leave supporters vociferously state that their side carried the day (even if UKIP’s Nigel Farage had stated before the event that such a margin of victory for Remain would not have been the end of the argument).
What is certain is that the UK has yet to trigger Article 50 which formally announces its intention to leave the EU and starts a two year countdown to its exit. Once triggered, there seems to be no mechanism to rescind the decision. In principle, this period just covers the process of disentangling the UK (in this case) from the EU and does not cover any future relationship between the two parties which would only be discussed once the UK has left (and therefore, has no rights within the bloc). It is entirely possible that any one of 27 member states could object to the UK’s continued access (under any terms) to the single market if it believed it to be in its national interest to do so.
Following on from the informal Bratislava meeting (which excluded the UK) the Visegrad group (Hungary, Slovakia, Czech and Poland) stated that they would be prepared to veto any post Brexit deal which would restrict their citizens’ rights to live and work in the UK.
Responding to these observations, Mrs May was dismissive: “The 27 will sign up to a deal with us. We will be negotiating with them. And … we will be ambitious in what we want to see for the UK. A good deal for the UK can also be a good deal for the other member states because I believe in good trading relations and I have said I want the UK to be a global leader in free trade.” This is all well and good, but the position of leaders of the EU and the EC is that the UK will not be allowed to have access to the single market, and critically will lose the privilege of financial “passporting” unless it agrees to freedom of movement of EU citizens.
It has been suggested that Mrs May will seek to reassure US banks that (somehow) they will continue to be able to operate across the EU from the UK after Brexit. However, France and Germany would clearly benefit enormously if the UK were to lose its place as the foremost global financial hub. Should the French or Germans chose to block access to the single market, post Brexit, there would be nothing that a UK that had just “taken back control” could do about it.