Brexit and access to the Single Market

Brexiteers have suggested that even though the UK will leave the EU, the UK will still have access to the Single Market. Is this correct?

The Single Market came into effect in the EU in 1993 and is a trading environment in which businesses may trade with each other and consumers without national restrictions or tariffs. Perhaps the most impressive characteristic of the EU’s Single Market is the sheer size of it. Before a Brexit, it includes within it 500 million consumers, making it the largest market in the world.

I studied European Law for my Masters although I never pursued a career in it. Given recent events I’m rather glad that I didn’t! We were taught that the European Union was underpinned by four freedoms, those being :

1. Free Movement of Goods 

2. Free Movement for Workers

3. Right of Establishment and Freedom to Provide Services

4. Free Movement of Capital

It doesn’t take much reflection to realise how important all four are if you are going to have a Single Market – it can’t really be that if businesses and individuals cannot exercise these freedoms.

We were taught that not only were these four freedoms important, they were in fact enshrined by the EU as underlying principles on which everything is based. They are not mere guidelines, they are the four cornerstones on which the Single Market is based. Access to the Single Market must, the EU has said, involve agreeing to all four. You cannot pick and choose.

The Free Movement of Workers is the controversial point here. Even if the UK leaves the EU, it will still be greatly in the interests of the UK to have access to the Single Market. 

Yet how will this be tempered by having to accept, to some degree, the Free Movement of Workers? Many who voted Leave will be thinking that the government will swiftly bring in marked reductions in immigration. But, in my view, having to accept the Free Movement of Workers will mean this simply won’t happen. We might have more control than we do now. But it will be a lot less control than many who voted Leave will be expecting.

The other alternative is to not include access to the Single Market as part of the deal the UK makes on leaving the EU. This would, it seems, be very damaging to the UK economy. Are we really going to cut our nose off to spite our face? Maybe we are.

At some point, this issue will boil over again. Many of those who voted Leave are unlikely to fully accept the compromise that is going to have to be reached on this point.