Tomsk79

The drumbeat of Centrism is getting louder, if you can imagine such a thing. Current Lib Dem leader Vince Cable embarrassingly missed a crucial Brexit vote in order, it is claimed, to discuss a possible new party with unknown others. Leading Tory "rebel" Dominic Grieve has put it on the record that he will leave his party if Boris Johnson becomes leader. And Chuka Umunna has warned that the Labour party is at breaking point under Corbyn's leadership in comments widely interpreted as a signal that he is on the way out. It's prudent to take some of these public remarks with a pinch of salt of course. After all, it's the same Dominic Grieve who was conned by Tory whips into voting against his own Brexit amendment . And it's the same Chuka Umunna who said in the wake of the referendum that we should be prepared to sacrifice single market membership in order to curtail freedom of movement rights , before deciding that fighting for the single market was a be

Some Remainers are upset at Jeremy Corbyn again, after he apparently ruled out staying in the single market after Brexit . Many have taken umbrage at his claim that single market membership is intrinsically linked to EU membership, pointing to the EFTA countries Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland as counterexamples. But Corbyn is technically correct to say that the single market is not a club that can be joined. You can of course loosely say that the likes of Norway and Switzerland are "in" the single market, but their high level of access comes through the EEA agreement and bilateral treaties respectively, which include exceptions such as agriculture and fisheries. It's not a binary distinction by any means. Rather than argue semantics, a more fruitful exercise is to analyse what Labour would actually hope to achieve if they were in charge of Brexit negotiations. As with the Conservatives , it is clear enough if you take at face value what they say t