Brexit means Brexit – and that means there will be no debate on freedom of movement

It has been suggested, even by some Brexit supporters, that EEA might be an “off-the-shelf” status that Britain could adopt as a transitional way out of the EU. The significance of the Chequers Cabinet was that this has now been ruled out

Theresa May holds a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's country retreat Chequers in Buckinghamshire to discuss department-by-department Brexit action plans (PA)

I had high hopes, at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, that Theresa May was going to conduct the whole of her premiership in rhyming couplets. Against the grand, wood-panelled backdrop of the Prime Minister’s country house, Chequers, she said: “Brexit means Brexit and we’re going to make a success of it.”

But she continued in free verse: “That means there’s no second referendum; no attempts to sort of stay in the EU by the back door; that we’re actually going to deliver on this.” These were important words, even if they didn’t rhyme; even if she seemed to be saying what we knew already; and even if she slightly mangled the back door metaphor.

We know what she means. Brexit does not mean leaving the EU by the front door and then returning by the back door of the EEA, the European Economic Area, which includes Norway and Iceland. They are part of the single market, which includes the free movement of EU workers, but they are not members of the EU.

It has been suggested, even by some Brexit supporters, that EEA might be an “off-the-shelf” status that Britain could adopt as a transitional way out of the EU. The significance of the Chequers Cabinet was that this has now been ruled out.

The official summary of the discussion made this explicit. The “decisive view” of cabinet ministers was “that the model we are seeking is one unique to the United Kingdom and not an off-the-shelf solution. This must mean controls on the numbers of people who come to Britain from Europe but also a positive outcome for those who wish to trade goods and services.”

There you have it. This column deduced it a few weeks ago, but now we have it in writing from the Prime Minister’s office: control of immigration comes first, and so the Government will not try to stay in the single market, because it cannot do both.

That also means that all the agonising over when to trigger Article 50, the start of the formal two-year timetable for leaving the EU, is over. I don’t think Theresa May has decided definitely yet, but it looks as if, having bought time by ruling it out until the end of this year, she will do it straight away in January.

That is what Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande expect, and there is no good reason to delay. The pause has given Ms May time to work out that Article 50 is a Catch-22. She doesn’t want to trigger it until she knows the outlines of the deal between Britain and the EU, but the rest of the EU don’t want to start negotiating the deal until she has triggered it.

So she just has to get on with it and try to get the best deal she can. Delay will not change the fundamental asymmetry of the relationship. That is why it doesn’t matter much whether or not Parliament has a vote on Article 50. Government lawyers are confident that they will win when the Supreme Court rules next month on this question, but even if Parliament did have to vote, I don’t think it would try to delay the will of the people as expressed in the referendum.

Emma Reynolds, one of Labour’s most articulate pro-EU MPs, wrote on Friday that, although she thought Parliament must have a say, “this should not be an attempt to block the process of leaving the EU”. She sees a parliamentary debate merely as a chance to influence the UK’s negotiating strategy.

That’s a forlorn hope. The Government doesn’t have much influence over its own negotiating strategy. If we want to know what kind of deal to expect with the Continuity EU, we have to look at ourselves through German, French and Bruxellois eyes. We had a lot of this during the referendum campaign, about how German car makers wouldn’t stand for tariffs on their exports to the UK. But now that the referendum is over, German politicians don’t seem to be taking that line.

“We cannot give them any concessions because others will then demand the same,” said Thomas Oppermann, parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, Ms Merkel’s coalition partners.

So all the earnest discussion in Britain about whether we want “hard Brexit” or “soft Brexit” is irrelevant. There is only “Brexit”, plus whatever we can recover from the wreckage. Which is whatever the other 27 countries want to give us. We have to hope they think free trade is in their interest, but there is little we can do to stop them picking and choosing what to have free trade in (cars) and what barriers to keep up (financial services).

I am not saying this to try to be negative. I am with Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, whose prediction of lower economic growth next year provoked Boris Johnson at the Chequers Cabinet into saying it was important to be “confident”, according to James Forsyth of The Spectator. “Hammond coldly replied that the Government had to be confident and realistic.”

The British people voted for Brexit knowing that there would be an economic price to pay. Theresa May knows that the political price she would pay if she failed to deliver Brexit would be higher.

But if she were to honestly express herself in rhyming couplets, she would say: “Brexit means Brexit and we’re not in control of it.”