Vorpal wrote:Only the EFTA member countries can decide if the UK should be in the EFTA and the UK cannot request it whilst in the EU; the UK gave up it's membership in the EFTA when it joined the EU. I don't think tha tthe ECJ has the authority to rule on EFTA disputes, unless the member countries give it that authority.
No, it doesn't. There is a separate EFTA Court which rules on cases referred to it by the EFTA Surveillance Authority - so we'd be trading the ECJ and EC for two other supranational bodies, plus the EFTA Court's rules require it to follow the relevant case law of the ECJ and the General Court of the EU anyway. Joining EFTA would be basically rejoining the ECJ by proxy.
In other news, Theresa May was all over the news yesterday, saying that "Prime Minister Abe and I have agreed that as we exit the EU we will work quickly to establish a new economic partnership between Japan and the UK, based on the final terms of that [EU-Japan] agreement." So that's the big Brexit plan - to get the UK near-straight repeats of the EU trade deals we're throwing away?
But some sources reckon May's got a plan: a snap early election in 2019. Because you know, the UK government is democratic and doesn't keep just telling its citizens to vote again and again until they give the "correct" answer(!)