THE campaign to leave the European Union repeatedly urged Britain to “Take back control”. It is now a week since voters narrowly opted for Brexit, and the country has seldom looked so wildly off the rails. The prime minister has handed in his notice. The leader of the opposition is struggling to survive a coup. The pound hit a 31-year low against the dollar and banks lost a third of their value, before stabilising. Meanwhile there is talk in Scotland and Northern Ireland of secession.

Every one of these calamities was predicted in the event of a Leave victory, and yet still the country seems transfixed by what it has brought upon itself. It is time to snap out of the daze. The country needs a new leader, a coherent approach to negotiating with the EU, and a fair settlement with those nations within its own union that voted Remain. The damage to Britain’s prosperity and to its standing in the world is already grave, and will become far worse if the country now fails to “take back control” of its future.

The sick man of nowhere

Brexit’s grisly first week, and the misery ahead, have already provoked buyer’s remorse. More than 4m people have signed a petition calling for a re-run of the vote. An instant rejection of the result would be wrong. Although we regret the Brexit vote, 34m people have cast their ballot and the result was clear. A straight rematch would be no fairer than allowing England’s footballers another crack at Iceland, which inflicted a second humiliation a week after the referendum.

And yet Britain’s fate is still highly uncertain. Although Britons opted to leave the EU, Brexit comes in 57 varieties. The mildest sort would be an arrangement like Norway’s, involving continuing access to Europe’s “single market” in return for the free movement of people from EU countries and a contribution to the EU budget. At the opposite extreme, Britain could cut its ties entirely, meaning no more payments into the EU budget and no more unlimited migration—but no special access to the market which buys nearly half Britain’s exports, either. Voters were told they could have it all. They cannot.

The Norwegian option would do the least damage to the economy. It would also be the best chance to preserve the union with Scotland and Northern Ireland, both of which voted Remain. The ruling Scottish Nationalists, who lost an independence referendum in 2014, always said that Britain’s leaving the EU would justify another ballot on independence. They are right—especially since in 2014 many Scots voted to stay in Britain in order to remain in the EU. But independence would be painful: it might mean promising one day to adopt the euro and hardening the border with England, with which Scotland trades more than it does with the EU. Under a Norwegian-style deal, Scots might prefer to stick with England. The Nationalists should wait to see a deal before asking for a new referendum.

In Northern Ireland Brexit raises other problems. One is the prospect of resurrecting the border between north and south, a dismal piece of symbolism which might be avoided if Britain got a Norwegian settlement. Another shamefully overlooked snag is that Britain’s exit from Europe will break the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, in which Northern Ireland’s peace process was underpinned by the EU. This treaty has kept the peace in the UK’s most troubled region for nearly 20 years. Fixing the mess will be an urgent task for the prime minister.

Point of no Breturn

Who should that be? Tory party members, who have the final say, may favour one of the victorious Leave campaigners, a mediocre bunch who have disgraced themselves during the campaign: lying about inflated budget payments and phantom Turkish migrants, before vanishing after the vote when the Brexit hit the fan. None of them would make a worthy prime minister. And yet the very falseness of the prospectus they flogged may be their best qualification for the job. Britain’s next leader must explain to 17m voters that the illusion they were promised—all the EU’s benefits with none of its obligations—does not exist. Only when the authors of the Brexit fantasy themselves return from Brussels without this magical deal might Leave voters accept that a compromise is necessary.