Single Market could be UK’S single option

Hopes of a ‘have our cake and eat it’ deal with the EU are fading fast and were never realistic

As her government’s position in the Brexit negotiations goes from bad to worse, Theresa May must surely realise her pledge that the UK will leave the Single Market is no longer in the national interest.

This would outrage Brexiteers in her Cabinet and could bring about the fall of her government, but it has rapidly become clear that her preferred option – dubbed “have our cake and eat it” – is simply not possible.

The idea the European Union would allow the UK to have unfettered access to its markets, while being able to give an unfair competitive advantage to British businesses – using state subsidies, tax breaks or weaker safety regulations – should have been dismissed with the suggestion the UK would have £350 million a week extra to spend on the NHS.

In the latest sign of just how weak the government’s position is in the talks with Brussels, the Cabinet has reportedly agreed to roughly double the UK’S divorce settlement offer to £40 billion.

The sudden rise shows the UK government has blinked first, that it needs to strike a trade deal with the EU more than they need one with us. However, there is a problem with the current UK strategy – relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic. All seem agreed that the peace process cannot be endangered by a hard border between the two, but such a boundary must be created if there is to be a hard border between the UK and EU.

And Ireland’s foreign minister has now warned that the £40bn is not enough to enable the talks with Brussels to move on to the allimportant subject of trade; Dublin, he says, will use its veto unless the UK agrees to an open border between the Republic and the North.

In Ms May’s Florence speech, she ruled out the UK remaining a member of the Single Market – in the way that Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are despite not being in the EU. This, she rightly noted, would mean the UK would have to adopt any new EU rules “automatically and in their entirety”, adding that “such a loss of democratic control could not work for the British people”.

But she and the rest of us in the UK need to swallow our pride. Falling out of the EU with no trade deal and into a crisis in Ireland would be a terrible start for post-brexit Britain.

Better to remain in the Single Market initially. After all, once the dust settles, the UK could still decide to leave at a time of its own choosing.