Norway and Switzerland have to accept EU laws...

I voted Leave and was vaguely hoping that the UK government would do the obvious thing and just rejoin EFTA (and stay in the EEA), which would give us most of the advantages of being in the EU as well as most of the advantages of not being in the EU, thereby “respecting the outcome of the Referendum” which was a score draw.

An argument advanced by Leavers and Remainers alike is that “Norway and Switzerland have to accept EU laws despite not being members in order to trade with it”.

FullFact comes to the conclusion that “This is about right. Both Norway and Switzerland keep out of some EU activities, such as the Common Agricultural Policy. But they bring many of their laws into line with EU rules, on the single market in particular. Norway incorporates single market rules as they’re made, while Switzerland accepts EU law from time to time in return for more market access.”

There’s a bit more to it than this, but it’s partly a numbers thing.

The population of the EU (incl. UK) is 511 million against a total population in EFTA countries of just over 14 million, a ratio of 36:1.

Had the UK rejoined EFTA (I doubt that they’d still want us now), the numbers would be 445 million and 80 million, a ratio of 6:1. EFTA countries would still be outnumbered, but the imbalance would be considerably less and so the argument would have considerably less weight.

If then a couple of the less Europhile Member States follow the UK, the ratio would be lower still, once it drops below 3:1, the two blocs would be negotiating on a level playing field.