Brexit X-men: How the prime minister's key negotiators are coping

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London, says some “very senior” people in the UK government are deeply ignorant about the single market, and adds that only now are the Brexit-backers beginning to grasp the difficulty of what faces them. “I think that two months down the line the senior Brexiters are beginning to realise that the whole process is going to be a lot more complicated, time-consuming and boring than they had imagined before, when they had presented it all as black and white. They are beginning to realise that this will occupy most of the energies of government for the next five to 10 years.

“That does not mean that Brexit is not going to happen. Of course it is going to happen. But it is a massively complex and lengthy business.”

...Two months after the vote to leave, a British minister involved in the Brexit process says that little can be said, “because we still have to decide what Brexit means”. A cabinet minister insists that the prime minister wants “as much of the single market as possible”. But Grant argues that membership looks out of the question because it would mean accepting free movement and paying into the EU budget, which would be politically impossible.