Theresa May 2011. Flickr/FCO. Some rights reserved.Largely concealed from the electorate during the referendum campaign is the question that has recently taken the foreground in the post-Brexit debate – the sheer difficulty of disentangling the UK from the EU, even given the will and the necessary support.
It actually suited both Remain and Leave to avoid this knotty problem: Remainers were trying to make an economic and political case for staying in the EU, so arguing that extrication is immensely difficult legally and technically is scarcely the first line of attack. Leavers had little incentive to draw attention to the sheer complexity and uncertainty of the departure process, which might have deterred even the most intrepid Brexiteers.
The irony, of course, is that until the Lisbon Treaty was signed – allowing Tony Blair to wriggle out of his own promise to hold a referendum on the proposed new EU constitution, which the Treaty essentially replaced without triggering a UK vote – there was actually no provision for any country to leave the European Union.
