//That was not the subject of the thread...//
It certainly was (in my mind, anyway). “71 pages of paperwork for one lorry of fish”. In other words, if we hadn’t left we would not have had to go to the trouble.
// I also think that all trade agreements in the modern world come with political costs (if you understand what a non-tariff barrier is then this is impossible to deny) and that the ones we paid for trading with our neighbours were worth it.//
Of course they do. But if you can point out to me any other trading arrangement, between any two nations or blocs (excluding the EU) which requires one party to agree to legislation on employment, the environment, taxation and currency, and which requires freedom of movement of people between the two parties I’d agree that our relationship with the EU was no different to any other trading relationship. I think you’ll struggle because the EU is a political construct like no other, and certainly far more than a trading arrangement.
// For most of the people who wanted Brexit it was about immigration first and foremost" . Untitled you are spot on.//
No, Untitled is not spot on. For many people, if immigration was a consideration at all, it was about uncontrollable immigration. It was about the fact the the UK could not choose who settled and worked here and who did not. Now it can and there is no need for the NHS to be short of staff (so long as it thinks it is morally acceptable to poach medical staff from poorer countries who may have funded their education and training, that is). In any case, as I’ve already said, so what if it was? So what if the electorate did not like the idea of 450m people having an unalienable right to settle here? If leaving the EU was the only way to end that principle (and it certainly was), why do you blame people for voting to leave? Do you think it’s acceptable that settlement in the UK should be open to six or seven times the population that already live here?