Article content continued

The mere contemplation of this week’s exit agreement with the EU was enough to prompt further resignations from Prime Minister Theresa May’s already depleted cabinet

“I do believe that the U.K. over the years has given up a tremendous amount of sovereignty,” he told the Canadian Press, in ways that “I don’t think Canadians would ever accept for ourselves.” If Justin Trudeau had agreed to a clause in the renegotiated NAFTA, he said, establishing “a new legislature” among the three countries whose laws would be binding on Canada, “I don’t believe Canada would ever go for that.”

That’s almost certainly true. It was difficult enough persuading Canadians to agree to NAFTA as it is, which is a much looser arrangement than the EU. And I take his point — up to a point. Had I been a citizen of Britain at the time of the 1975 referendum on membership in what was then popularly known as the Common Market, and had I known it would evolve into the much more tightly integrated political and economic union it is today, I might have voted no.

Photo by Alastair Grant/AP Photo

But there is a difference between what one might choose ex ante, in advance of such developments, and what one might choose ex post, after having been a member of the union for 40-odd years, with all of the economic, legal and institutional ties that have built up over that time. Brexit would have been an enormously destructive act even had its advocates given any serious thought to what they wanted to replace it with, or how to go about it.

But of course they hadn’t, as was obvious even at the time. It was always clear, contrary to the airy assertions of the Brexiteers, that the EU would have by far the stronger hand in any negotiations, both on the terms of divorce and on what would come after. Even if the EU might be otherwise disposed to come to terms, it would have every incentive to strike as hard a bargain as possible so as to deter other would-be exiters.