Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
No, it is a politician's answer designed to do nothing but avoid the question.

It is not a question of precise extrication, it is a question of fundamentals- the single market, freedom of movement, trade agreements. And I did point out, before the referendum, that it was a little unfair that leavers were being asked to take a leap in the dark- a tiny bit of detail would have made for a more balanced debate. In the end it didn’t matter and people took the gamble anyway.

Either way…. You can make all the excuses you like. The fact is that the statement Brexit means Brexit says precisely nothing and is precisely designed to do so. It is an answer to a question that wants to know what Brexit means- at this stage, the government still don’t really have a clue. So how can it possibly mean anything?
As Monty said, Brexit means leaving the European institutions that comprise the EU. Pro-remain politicians (which is most of them) and pro-remain media (which is most of it) are muddying the water by pretending that it might mean something else (fakebrexit, basically), which encourages others to follow their lead.

As to the difficulties and complexities of this, well yes, it is both of those things but then radical political change like revolution and extraction from supranational entities is never easy. The difficulty of a task should not preclude the option of persuing it even if it is a challenging obstacle. Indeed, the 'technical' argument against attempting it which you are making is cut from the very cloth of the unassailable EU technocracy, where government is seen as a machine that humble voters can never attempt to understand, and can only be operated by the high priests of the machinery who should not be accountable to the odious masses (which the current, left-of-centre ruling class despise as much as their right-wing predecessors).

Welcome to the machine!