‘UK disarray may mean a Norway-style set-up’

The professor of government at Manchester University, Colin Talbot, said he does not now expect another UK election – the rules on calling or triggering one make it “almost impossible” – however Theresa May’s government could be forced to abandon ‘hard Brexit’ plans.

“The Tories are relatively secure, which is not tosay Theresa May is – I think she’ll be gone in weeks. But my suspicion is to survive politically as a government now – they need to come to a compromise involving us leaving the EU formally but having something like a ‘Norway arrangement’.”

Norway is in the single market, but not the customs union (thus allowing for trade deals with non-EU countries), but it abides by free movement and pays into the EU.

“People like Boris [Johnson] spoke about it during the referendum campaign,” Prof Talbot said. “Now even Farage has said it looks like we’re going to end up going for something like that.” This would be good news for the expat community, he said.

“I think that they will come up with some formula around the migration issue, whichlooks like they’ve ‘taken back control’, but in reality means it is relatively flexible. A lot of the problems around movement in any case to do with the British government’s failure to manage its borders and little to do with what was actually necessary under EU regulations. There were all sorts of restrictions they could have put in place but didn’t.”

Prof Talbot said this prospect is because “there is a majority in Parliament in favour of a softer Brexit” – including “virtually all of the Opposition”, as well as the DUP, the Conservative Party in Scotland and some other Conservatives. Labour’s position has been ‘wobbly’, but many of their voters, especially the young, want a soft Brexit, so they would be “shooting themselves in the foot” if they tried to do anything else.

However international relations expert Philippe Moreau Defarges, of IFRI in Paris, said he believes a hard Brexit is still more likely, because Europe, having gone through difficult times, will want to pull together and will not want to make concessions.

“I don’t think they are going to be interested in offering something like a Norway agreement, because Norway was never a member of the EU. It’s a different situation if you are leaving the club as opposed to if you never belonged to it.”

He added: “I think that Macron will not favour a soft Brexit because what he wants is European unity above all.”

The delays, and the UK’s weak government could also mean risks of the country leaving with ‘no deal’, he said, in which case, it would hurt the EU too, but the EU would cope.

Some arrangement on trade might still be “cobbled together”, he said.

“The vote for Brexit was a daft thing to do and I think the British are going to pay for it,” he added. “But what is especially tiresome is that the British still don’t really seem to know what they want.”