Can Brexit live up to its promises?

That’s the reality the leaders of the Leave campaign are now facing and the backtracking has already begun, leaving many wondering whether there’ll be even more Bregret in coming years.

Head of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage has already admitted that the Leave campaign made a “mistake” in claiming the £350 million ($A640.44 million) a week reportedly given to the European Union would go to the NHS, Britain’s public healthcare system.

Those who voted for Brexit because of immigration concerns may also be disappointed.

Immigration control was seen as one of the major factors that delivered a win to the Leave campaign, but many are now casting doubt over whether the UK can achieve this without compromising its crucial economic links with the European Union.

As Brexit now becomes a reality, can the Leave team actually deliver what it promised?

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ‘SINGLE MARKET’

One major sticking point is whether the UK will still have access to the European Union’s “single market” of 500 million people.

Essentially, the UK wants the best of both worlds. It wants to be a sovereign nation that controls its own borders, yet retain the economic benefits of accessing Europe’s huge “single market” — created to remove trade barriers on the sale of goods and services, stimulate trade and improve efficiency.

The prospect of the UK losing access to the single market was one of the reasons the pound dropped to its lowest level since 1985 on Friday.

Possibly the biggest indicator of the importance of the “single market” was actually provided by one of the leaders of the Leave campaign and possible future prime minister Boris Johnson, who committed to keeping access.

“There will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market,” Johnson wrote in a regular column for the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on Sunday.

Despite the Leave campaign listing benefits of Brexit as including savings of £350 million a week, being in charge of borders and controlling immigration, Mr Johnson has now backed away from migration as a driving issue.

“It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly driven by anxieties about immigration,” he wrote. “I do not believe that is so.”

He now says that the only change “and it will not come in any great rush” is that the UK will remove itself from the EU’s vast and complex system of laws.

“This will bring not threats, but golden opportunities for this country — to pass laws and set taxes according to the needs of the UK.”

Mr Johnson, a former mayor of London, would understand how important the “single market” was to the UK’s economy.

London’s status as a global financial centre is partly based on it acting as a gateway for US and Asian businesses into Europe.
 

The result of the Brexit vote already has some firms suggesting they may relocate at least part of their workforce to other cities within the EU.

The European Central Bank also warned that Britain’s financial industry, which employs 2.2 million people, would lose the right to serve clients in the EU unless the country signed up to its single market.

The importance of the single market was also noted by Scotland’s leader Nicola Sturgeon, who pointed to the likelihood of an independence referendum if the country could not “secure our continuing place in the EU and the single market”.

Some on social media are even calling for London, where almost 60 per cent voted to Remain, to become a city-state like Singapore, a movement dubbed “Lexit”.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has dismissed the idea but insisted that the capital’s voice must be heard in Britain’s EU exit negotiations, most importantly that the UK should retain access to the European single market.

THERE’S ONE MAJOR CATCH

But as Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told ITV television, if the UK wants to keep access to the single market, it may have to accept continued “freedom of movement”.

The right of people to move live, work and retire anywhere in Europe was a major sticking point driving the Leave campaign with many wanting more restrictions on immigration. But it’s something that may not be possible if the UK wants to maintain access to the single market.

“Key Leave campaigners made contradictory promises to the British people,” Mr Hammon said.

“That will be hugely disappointing to many people in this country who voted Leave, but how those trade-offs are made is the key question now for the prosperity of our country.”

Mr Hammond said Leave campaigners may not be able to deliver on “mutually incompatible” promises and will have to explain how they will balance the trade-off.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also warned Britain may have to accept freedom of movement, while acknowledging the need for an open and honest debate about immigration.

“If we were part of the single market in future, then clearly that would be accompanied by the continuing free movement of people,” he said.

Closing the UK’s borders may involve reintroducing border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, igniting fears this could inflame tensions.

Brexit may also see France dump responsibility for migrants back on to the UK.

Some French politicians are now arguing that migrant camps and British border controls in the French port city of Calais should be moved to the UK.

“Now that Britain is no longer in the EU, there’s no reason for the border to still be in Calais,” Political scientist Francois Gemenne told AFP.

Gemenne, a professor at the Science Po institute in Paris, mused over “the paradox ... that while the vote for Brexit was mainly an anti-immigration vote, Britain may find itself having to take in more migrants.”

Notably, he said, London would no longer be allowed to return asylum seekers to their first EU port of call under a different accord, the EU’s Dublin agreement.
 

IT’S POSSIBLE THOUGH, ISN’T IT?

Others have suggested it’s possible to maintain access to the single market while not being part of the EU. Countries that do this include Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

But the one thing that’s often overlooked, is the fact that these countries have adopted EU rules including freedom of movement. So the situation is not any different, except these countries have less control over what the EU rules are.

Norway’s former foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said in an opinion piece ahead of the Brexit vote, “our subscription to freedom of movement and our membership of the Schengen area means that Norway has even higher per capita immigration than Britain”.

The UK is actually not a member of the Schengen area and has stricter immigration rules compared to other EU countries, which allow its members to travel freely between countries.

The UK checks passport details of anyone who enters the country from a non-EU country, even if that person enters the UK from another EU country like France.

ECB Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau noted in an interview with France Inter radio on Saturday, it would be “a bit paradoxical” for Britain to leave the EU by agreeing to apply all EU rules, like Norway had, in order to keep access to the single market.

Whether the UK could negotiate an agreement that allowed it to maintain access to the single market while pulling back on free movement was unclear.

Annmarie Elijah, associate director of the ANU Centre for European Studies, said she thought Boris Johnson was being “very optimistic” that the UK could hang on to its single market access.

“He is assuming that suitable terms can be arrived at,” Dr Elijah said. But these terms may not be of the UK’s choosing and they may have to “take what they can”. She said the UK did not have the upper hand in negotiations and it was one country facing the united position of 27 others in the EU.

“The UK needs access to the single market and freedom of movement will be a sticking point,” she said.

“It will be hugely controversial and the EU leadership may not be in a compassionate mood to allow this to occur.”

If immigration laws do not change greatly because the UK wants to keep access to the single market, the new agreement may not be very different to what exists now.

“In a lot of ways when the Leave camp reads the fine print they may not be satisfied that it constitutes a sufficient break with the EU,” Dr Elijah said.

But she said it wasn’t just the Leave campaign that had “told porkies”.

While the Leave campaign had exaggerated claims the UK could seek markets elsewhere, the Remain campaign put forward inflated projections about the effectiveness of the single market over the next 30 years.

“Both sides have been telling porkies like there’s no tomorrow.”

— With Reuters, AP

charis.chang@news.com.au