Britain Could Be Canada

In the scramble to find a model for its post-Brexit relationship with the European Union, Britain has considered a series of options: the Norway model, the closest of all trading relationships available absent actual membership of the bloc; the Swiss model, more complicated but with more sovereignty; and the Canada model, the loosest of all.

But perhaps this has been the entirely wrong way of looking at the challenge. For too long, Brexit has been viewed as an end in itself, not a beginning. At the root of much of the back-and-forth between Brexiteers and Remainers has been the fallacy that whichever model is chosen, that will be the end of the matter—that the politics of Britain’s relationship with its continental neighbors will come to an end, the new state of affairs locked in from then on.