Britain | A new orbit

Britain will drift from Europe, but not very far

There are big constraints on divergence, but opportunities too

IN JANUARY 2017 the Conservative Party’s civil war over how to leave the European Union was just beginning. Many Tory MPs had only a fuzzy idea of what quitting the single market and customs union would mean; some entertained themselves with a campaign to relaunch the Royal Yacht. Sir Michael Rawlins, then the head of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, (MHRA) Britain’s drugs regulator, saw the road ahead clearly.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “A new orbit”

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