Leaving the EU may entail a loss of sovereignty for the UK

There is little doubt that in the case of a Brexit, the UK would still need to trade with other European single market countries, considering that about half of its trade in goods and in services is with them. Britain could therefore find itself in a similar position to countries signing up to the European Free Trade Agreement – being compelled to abide by the rules of the single market, but having no longer a say in how these rules are drafted. André Sapir and Guntram Wolff point at what they define as the UK’s ‘sovereignty myth’: by opting out of the union, the UK could in fact find itself with less sovereignty, not more.