It is likely that a Brexit vote would see the resignation of David Cameron and a Eurosceptic Tory as PM. But how would such a person get a deal through Parliament?

IF BRITAIN votes to leave the European Union, it seems likely to spell the end of David Cameron as prime minister. Even if he does not resign, his backbenchers will force him out. In the circumstances it will be hard for those who backed Remain to step into the role; the most likely replacement would be someone from the Brexit camp, such as Boris Johnson or Michael Gove (pictured). So what kind of deal with the EU would such leaders negotiate? It has been a long-standing problem for the Brexit campaign that they have not been able to articulate what sort of trade deal they could arrange. A Norway/Switzerland-style deal would guarantee access to the single market (making life easier for British firms to operate in continental Europe) but at the cost of agreeing to free movement of labour and EU Budget contributions, two things Brexiteers dislike. A simple trade deal under WTO rules would be better in sovereignty terms but worse in economic ones; British goods could face some tariffs and in services, an area of British expertise and buoyant exports, access would be restricted.

Mr Gove said recently that he favoured leaving the single market; Mr Johnson seems to stick to a Trump-like assertion that Britain would simply negotiate a good deal. Much of the debate has revolved around whether the EU would be generous in its negotiating stance (because of the need to sell goods into the British market) or hostile (because EU leaders will not want to encourage other countries to think they will get a good deal by leaving).

But another factor is at play here (and I am grateful to Gerald Ashley, a Brexit enthusiast, for drawing it to my attention). Any trade deal would have to get past the House of Commons. But the House of Commons is, on the whole, strongly pro-Remain; perhaps half of Conservative MPs, most of Labour, and all of the Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and other nationalists. So MPs would have to execute a policy they profoundly disagree with. (Indeed, this is another reason why Mr Cameron or Mr Osborne could not plausibly be in charge of the negotiations.)

This shows a problem with direct democracy in action. The voters may opine on the overarching principle but the voters cannot get involved in the minutiae of policy implementation. Some, such as Roland Smith, argue that the result of all this is that Gove/Johnson will have to agree to a Norway-style deal, with the free labour movement and the budget payments that implies. But that is going to annoy a lot of voters who will have voted Leave because they dislike immigration or the cost of EU membership.

But this sounds like a recipe for chaos. A Gove/Johnson government would have to start, surely, by pushing for the deal they have originally advocated. If they bring back such a deal, it might be rejected by a House of Commons in which they do not have a majority. Or they could reverse themselves and face accusations of betrayal from papers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph; it will look again as if the "elite" have betrayed the voters. The Conservative party would be ripped apart in advance of the 2020 election.

Financial markets would be watching all this in a grim mood, contemplating either a bad trade deal for Britain or a likely Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn. Since at the moment, they seem quite confident that Remain will win (odds on Remain are 1/4 to 1/3, on Leave are 12/5 to 13/5), the shock on the morning of June 24th would be all the greater.