I scan read that WP so forgive me if I missed something crucial but, as part of the EU, we have in place trade agreements with 27 EU member states and getting on for a further 50 other countries around the world. To benefit from those trade agreements obviously the EU have to put in place regulations (and if we want to carry on trading with the EU when we've left, we'd have to continue to abide by those regulations).

If we therefore 'hard brexit, we'll be jeopardising c 77 already in place trade agreements with other countries in the hope that we can negotiate some new ones of our own..... eventually.

As for 'benefitting' from less regulation, the EU regulations include one heck of a lot of employment protection, consumer protection, conservation and environment rules which, should we lose them, will be a huge backward step. Less regulation is in many cases the last thing we need - think of the criminality of some investment banks in the past few years, their mis-selling of financial products, pay day loans, poor disclosure of emissions (VW) to get an edge, politicians lying left, right and centre etc etc. And that's all been possible within the current regulations. Yeah, less regulations sounds 'such' a good idea....