I don't remember voting on what Boris thinks, nor do I believe his opinions to be relevant. I know only what I voted for, and that is to return the sovereignty of my country to the state that I enjoyed in my youth. It was a matter of Great Britain, or little britain as a minor parish in an out of control monolith. Parliament will decide what we agree to as we are once again a unitary power beholden to no other nation. How parliament is constituted will depend on the will of the people, and as such, I see the need for an early general election to sort out the present chaos. Let us make our own laws and stop worrying about the fetters of a single market or any other European pretension. We voted for a single market once and we were duped . We should not fall into that trap again. If we mess up this God-given opportunity, history will be unforgiving.
You voted to leave the EU. You did not vote to leave the single market. There is therefore absolutely no democratic obligation for the UK government to also quit the EEA, hence the leave campaign now preparing their supporters for this eventuality.
As I said a few pages ago, single market membership – which, like it or not, is critical for the continued presence of financial institutions in the city of London - carries with it many of the same obligations as full EU membership, with absolutely none of the control. We lose the veto on Turkey. We lose the ability to influence laws which we will be expected to abide by. We lose the right, even, to shape the EU’s border control policies, which means we will have even less control of our borders than we do now.
This puts the Government – and it really doesn’t matter who the Government is – in an impossible position.
They either quit the EU AND the single market, and condemn the UK to catastrophic financial ruin as the one thing that keeps this country afloat, the City, departs to Dublin or Frankfurt. Or they commit the UK to continued EEA membership, and betray the millions of Leave voters who voted to ‘take back control’.
The financial realities of the global marketplace means they will probably be forced to opt for the latter. I fear as this becomes apparent, and millions of leave voters realise they were lied to, we are in for social disorder on a scale we have never seen in our lifetimes.
Or they can just quit the single market. Which would be an act of extraordinary vandalism, and unless some kind of deal could be arranged to retain the ‘pass’ outside of the EEA (good luck with that) would lead to financial institutions quitting the city of London en masse (and if you think this would be a good thing for the economy, then feel free to explain your reasons why so we can all have a bloody good laugh at them).
Even Boris knows this would be economic suicide. But if he doesn't take this path, there will be riots. This is the choice that now awaits the next PM – and explains why David Cameron quit rather than make it himself.