What Mrs May's Chequers plan shows, with it's proposal to remain part of the single market for goods, is the first really explicit recognition that this is an important element if we are to avoid a hard border in Ireland, chaos at Dover and other ports and maintain trade at anything close to present levels. Indeed, many people think it is an essential element of any deal.
The future of Brexit will surely turn on how much weight the government will give to this aspect of the deal in the negotiations. Is it enough to pull the rest of the UK back into the single market and the customs union or not? And this will depend on the private warnings given by the car industry, Airbus, the fresh fruit importers and so on.
Or is the UK powerful enough to pull the freedom of movement of goods alone out of the single market? If it really is essential to us, and the EU maintains the indivisibility of the four freedoms and refuses to split one off from the other three, then a choice is looming.
Do we destroy JIT manufacturing in this country and perhaps, over time, a million jobs? Is it dispensable? Or do we concede we will have to accept the other three freedoms of services, capital and people. The reality of the indivisibility of the four freedoms is coming into focus.
We must accept them all or none. The big decision is coming soon. Which way will it go? Mrs May and the cabinet will need to make a massive gamble against all the advice and warnings, to take us out of the single market. My guess is that they won't do it. The potential cost would be massive, over a decade or so it could easily reach a trillion pounds.
How they then present it to the public will be fascinating.
