Membership of EFTA is fairly bespoke. Different member states have been allowed to take different decisions as to whether they join the EU customs area, and whether, and to what extent, they participate in the EU single market and apply EU law. In some cases, different regions of the same country have been able to negotiate different membership terms.dyqik wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:21 pmSigning up to EFTA or the EU wouldn't take that much negotiation, just a willingness to accept the standard T&Cs. Those aren't bespoke trade agreements.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 7:34 pmYeah I don't think the UK will just waltz into any more substantial agreements with the EU after the past few years. Negotiations like that would probably take more than one premiership and be ripe with opportunities for humiliation.
And anyway after 2019 I don't think Labour will want to make the electoral risk of coming out as an anti-brexit party, having previously lost all their voters in key constituencies despite carefully not having been remainy enough to satisfy remainers at the last election.
And we can't just sign up to either organisation. They would have to allow us back in, and we would have to negotiate the terms of our re-entry. The EU are unlikely to roll out the red carpet for us, given our previous behaviour, and they would be reluctant to allow us the generous terms and opt-outs that we had before. Gaining the approval of EFTA is potentially even more tricky because our entry would result in it becoming an organisation six times its previous size, with 80% of its population being British, which would have serious affects for both its internal management and for the continuous discussions that manage its partial and bespoke alignments with the EU.