Leaders have made clear, before and after the vote, that Britain is not getting access to the single market.
“Out is out,” said Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister, some weeks ago.
“There will certainly be no cherry picking,” confirmed Mr Juncker, saying it will be a "clean" divorce.
More likely is a Canadian-style trade deal, that will set tariffs on imports and exports. That may be fine for German manufacturers. But Britain’s service economy will be cut up like an old car. British graduates are about to learn what it's like to use an Australian-style points system.
Article 50 is designed so that it leaves any state that activates it is a supplicant.
The remaining EU states will negotiate between themselves and deal with the UK as one, just as they would for Albania or Turkey.
If a deal covering trade arrangements isn’t struck once the two-year period expires, Britain is simply released from the EU treaties and left on crippling WTO terms - something the Treasury terms a "severe shock scenario" and which it envisages would likely result in a cut in GDP of six per cent and increase unemployment by 800,000, not including the risks presented by emergency spending cuts, or the "tipping points" presented by the crystallisation of financial stability risks.
It means the government will effectively be forced to take any fait accompli presented at the last minute, or face ruin.
Even then, any further trade deal will require ratification by EU parliaments, meaning Belgian MPs, amongst others, can veto it.
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