Hard Exit; Soft Exit; No Exit

Whether you are thinking through these issues from a normative point of view (what ought to happen), a predictive point of view (what will happen), or an explanatory point of view (why or how it happened/will happen this way), it is helpful to recognize that the different key actors have different preferences:

OPTIONS:

Hard Exit--Britain leaves the EU, the Single Market, the Customs Union, and does not negotiate access to the Single Market by way of the EFTA (Liechtenstein Option) or EEA (Norway Option) but trades with the EU under WTO rules--or perhaps WTO rules plus some newly worked out arrangements.

Pro: UK would gain sovereignty and "take back control" of immigration. (These things matter for the Tory Right and Ukip and even for a few left-wing national/parliamentary sovereignty zealots).

Con: UK would lose privileged access to the Single Market, including loss of "passporting rights" for Financial Services.

Soft Exit--Britain leaves the EU but negotiates privileged access via some form of EFTA/EEA arrangement. (For a useful collection of monographs on this option, see Richard North's monographs on the topic.)

Pro: UK gains sovereignty and retains access to SM.

Con: UK cannot control immigration from EU and must accept EU regulations, the authority of the ECJ and pay into EU budget, but has no/or very little say over EU rules and regs.

Personally, I think Soft Exit is a political non-starter: the EU will not offer it; and May can't go down this route without provoking a right-wing coup against her led by people like Boris Johnson, David Davies, and Liam Fox.

No Exit--Britain stays in the EU, whether de facto or de jure.

Pro: Uk continues to trade with EU on favourable terms.

Con: Leave voters will be mightily pissed-off.

More on this in the next post.

ACTORS:

Tory Left:

The position represented by Philip Hammond and a few others.

Tory Right/UKIP:

The position of people obsessed with sovereignty (Daniel Hannan, for example) and/or immigration (Nigel Farage).

Labour Left/Corbyn:

The position of the so-called Lexiters. (For my take on the Left's problems with Brexit, see this piece--written the day or so before the vote.)

The City/MNCs:

The EU/European Commission:

Mrs Merkl:

Theresa May: