OK, sod it, EFTA/EEA it is then.

From the BBC:

A post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU “seems unlikely” at this stage, the bloc’s negotiator has said.

Speaking after the latest round of talks, Michel Barnier said he was “disappointed” and “concerned”. His UK counterpart David Frost spoke of “little progress”, amid differences on fisheries policy and state aid rules.

The EU never had any real interest in a trade deal with the UK, and certainly not one that was of benefit to the UK. The UK must suffer, and be seen to be suffer for daring to vote ‘Leave’, just to dissuade any other Member States from even thinking about it.

Sure, this will cost their economy as well, but the rest-of-EU economy is six times as big as the UK’s. If the lost trade costs the EU 1% of their GDP, they can tolerate that, knowing it will cost the UK 6% of theirs.

The UK government is equally worthy of contempt of course.

They are grandstanding idiots who appear to have believed that they could negotiate some sort of mutually beneficial deal, or even that the EU was a reliable negotiating partner in the first place. Whatever the UK agrees with the EU’s ‘head office’, each Member State and the EU Parliament still has a veto, so it’s pointless.

The penny hasn’t dropped yet, even after four years of time wasting and uncertainty.

Instead of flouncing off after the Referendum, Cameron should have started organising our re-entry into EFTA and remaining in the EEA/Single Market long before then, just as back up in case Project Fear didn’t work (it backfired spectacularly).

EFTA/EEA- half-in, half-out. Most of the advantages of full EU membership (and there are many) with most of the advantages of not being a Member State (of which there are equally many). What’s not to like?