The Norway option still has a fatal flaw

Brexit isn't popular. A succession of polls in the last few weeks have all shown that support for Rejoin exceeds support for staying out of the EU by around 15-20 points. Long gone are the heady heights of 2016 - the promises of the sunlight uplands, control, a revitalised NHS, a booming economy and higher wages. Instead we are faced with a doubling of red tape, burdensome border procedures, record inflation and economic volatility. The bounding hope of new 'dynamism' under local democratic control has been superseded by a grinding nervousness that one wrong step by our leaders could send the economy into freefall. 

In this context, the conversation in civil society and the general public (if not among politicians) has been reignited about what to do with Brexit. Almost snuffed out by the Johnson landslide of 2019 and the subsequent Brexit deal, the miserable reality of life outside the EU is reimposing the debate on what our relationship with the EU should actually be. 

In this context, one option is already making a strong comeback in general debate and will likely continue to be promoted more and more by influential commentators and analysis - the Norway option. 

'Norway' is a loose term here because not everyone promotes exactly the same idea. Some talk about a kind of 'associate membership' with the EU Single Market, which would remove a lot of the economic barriers but be more limited in scope. Others talk about fully rejoining just the Single Market and still others would include both the Single Market and the Customs Union. 

But in broad terms, we can use 'Norway' to describe a move towards meaningful economic integration without any role in the EU's political institutions. It is more than simply adding an SPS agreement on top of a hard Brexit but it is less than actually rejoining the EU. 

Superficially, the attraction is obvious. It offers a quick fix to some of our critical economic problems while stopping short of actually arguing that the decision in 2016 was wrong. Brexit needn't be entirely pointless, we don't have to reopen the whole debate, Brexit was simply delivered in the wrong way. For its proponents, it's the best of both worlds for both Brexiteers and pro-Europeans.

In truth though, consideration of this option will be as much a waste of time as it was during the post-referendum debates - a distraction from options that would actually be viable.

Specifically, it suffers from two problems. 

The first is a question of political pragmatism. In pursuing Norway, defenders of this model hope to avoid many of the difficult debates on the value and importance of European integration. They accept the premise that it's simply impossible to move public opinion (in spite of the evidence it is constantly moving towards a more pro-EU view) and so Brexit must be maintained as a point of principle. 

Yet if we are to actually be part of the Single Market then an argument against the key pillars of Brexit is impossible to avoid. The restoration of free movement, the supremacy of EU law, the jurisdiction of the ECJ - these are all arguments you would need to win in order to secure the Norway option. Reopening the debates of 2016 and after will simply be an inevitable reality. To pretend they can be avoided will help no one.

The only debate you will really avoid is on the value of political representation in the EU. Yet how many people, even on the Leave side, really objected to the UK simply having political representatives (which we must distinguish from a belief that our representation and political weight was insufficient)?

Which brings us to the second problem with the Norway option - and this is really the fatal flaw in the entire scheme - the lack of democracy.

At no point in the debate, before 2016, during the referendum, or since, has any significant section of the British public given the impression that it wants less democracy in its law-making. Certainly there is a vital debate on whether we have more democracy working within the EU's political institutions, following common EU laws where our governments have a say directly alongside elected UK MEPs or whether it is more democratic to be outside the EU, abandoning that representation in exchange for the theoretical possibility of having more direct control over our laws. 

But the Norway option does not correspond to either of these sides. It falls between the cracks of public opinion because it is a straightforwardly less democratically legitimate settlement. Being inside the Single Market - or following a significant proportion of its rules - whilst having no say on those rules. 

It is an option that can only be justified with the most shallow transactional logic, placing the economic benefits above concerns of democracy and accountability. It continues the failed approach of the official 2016 Remain campaign, believing - against clear evidence - that people are not that interested in the political aspect of our relationship with our European neighbours. Perhaps counter-intuitively, it is actually a harder debate to win in practice than rejoining the EU outright. 

Brexiteers and Rejoiners divide on many points of the EU debate but they do share some essential assumptions. One is that the UK is too big and significant to simply be a rule-taker and the other is that it is unacceptable for a large number of our laws to be imposed without us having a say. A policy that ignores this will head straight into a dead end.