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Comment by TheGrumpyBrit | Hacker News Reader

The thing is, there was no talk of a deal before the referendum. The vote was simply Stay or Go, with the assumption being that we would simply fall back to WTO rules. All this talk of negotiating a deal came after the vote. In that sense, a No Deal Brexit is closer to what the people voted for than any deal. Contrary to "voters remorse", I know plenty of Brexit supporters who are celebrating the defeat of what they see as the governments attempt to undermine the terms of Brexit.

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There was no talk of falling back to WTO rules.

There was talk of 'hard' and 'soft' Brexits.

Mainly there was talk of how we could stay in the single market, and maintain all the good things about EU membership without having to pay any of the costs.

Oh, really? Here's the speech Michael Gove gave at the outset of the Vote Leave campaign: http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/michael_gove_the_facts_o...

The key quote:

"There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will stay in this zone. The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and the Ukraine would stay part of this free trade area - and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus - is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker joining UKIP."

So here you have one of the two most senior politicians in the Vote Leave campaign, in a flagship speech, saying that after we vote to leave we will continue to enjoy free trade with Europe. Not WTO rules, not even a negotiated deal. He says we'll just "stay in this zone" as if it was a default.

I've never seen anything in the Brexit campaign saying that the goal was to fall back to WTO rules between UK and EU.

That's because it's the default position after leaving the EU trading block.

Just like the Geneva Convention is the default position when there is no peace treaty.

Nonetheless, having that be the only thing governing one state's relationships with another is so rare and unpleasant that unless that state of affairs is explicitly requested with a declaration of war it is natural to assume something else is intended.

The official Vote Leave campaign absolutely did talk about a deal: https://imgur.com/a/YGitsR8

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