May and the single market in good

Is Theresa May about to propose that the UK should stay in Europe’s single market for goods? ... The question was raised by Ivan Rogers, the former UK ambassador to the EU, at the end of his recent Glasgow speech. It was touched on by Martin Wolf in a recent column. It was fully discussed yesterday by Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform in an FT op-ed which, like the other pieces, is required reading.

Grant’s argument is as follows. There has been a lot of talk about the UK remaining in a customs union. But that alone will not resolve the main remaining challenge of the negotiation: that there should be no friction at the Irish border. For that to happen, the UK would have to accept that the UK should also remain in the EU’s single market for goods (and VAT area). This seems to be what Mrs May’s Brexit team is exploring ahead of the Chequers meeting, which will discuss the government’s trade white paper.

...As Grant writes: “Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s chief negotiator, says the single market is “binary” — you are either in all or none of it — and must involve free movement of labour”. Anything else would be cherry picking.