World View: EU can adapt to complexities of British exit
A variegated Brexit in which regions retain closer ties to EU should not be problematic
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon suggests Scotland could be accommodated in an EU half-way house akin to Norway, while the rest of the UK adopts a “hard” Brexit. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images
There was a time in the earliest years of the history of the EU/EEC/EC when you were either in or out. And if you were in, you took the whole package, lock stock and barrel. There was no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. Then, to say “Brexit means Brexit” – though no-one ever did – would have been to express a perfectly clear, unambiguous statement.
Not so these days. Fluidity is the rule. These days the multiplicity of meanings of the once-simple concept of “membership” is tearing British Leavers and Remainers apart and bewildering everyone else. And the dichotomy between “hard” and “soft” Brexit barely scratches the surface of that complexity.