Unanswered questions and ex-prime-ministers

It is striking how prime-ministers tend to become much more impressive when they are ex-prime-ministers. It's not surprising, I guess. They were never stupid in the first place, and whatever ideological differences you might have with them, they were also almost too busy to think for themselves, and pressured by the party machine and the over-scrutiny of everything they say. Once out of office, they have time to think and freedom to say it. Even if you disagree with them, there tends to be at least a reflective argument with which you can engage. To put it another way, you only become a 'statesman' (or woman) after you have actually ceased to be an active one.

I thought exactly that about John Major on the Today programme this morning  (it's at 8.10). I remember so vividly when he was my enemy number one. Here he was deftly puncturing the "faux-patriotic" mantras of the Brexit side, about Britain as some kind of victim of the EU. OK, you'll say, I just happen to agree with him for once. And I can't deny that must be part of it. But he was actually trying to put a bit of reflective complexity into the debate, especially on sovereignty -- an idea that is touted by the Vote Leave side as if it equated to Britain having the unfettered right to do whatever it fancied. Sovereignty is always shared, just as our own individual freedom of action and rights to self-determination is always a negotation with others. It's seriously misleading to suggest otherwise.

But I found myself thinking again this morning of the questions, beyond the slogans, that Brexit isn't even raising, let alone answering (unless I've missed it amongs all the speechifying). Like what do they actually plan to happen if we vote Out. To put it another way, we wake up on the morning of the 24 June to discover it's been a Brexit victory, then what?

I have two questions in particular.

First: why do they think that we could remain in a European free trade area (EEA/EFTA) and not also have to sign up to the free movement of labour. That's the deal that the much praised Norway has. In fact, Norway is not in the EU, but it is in the Schengen area, and in Brexit terms has no control of its own borders at all. What reason do they have for thinking that we would get a free trade deal entirely without 'strings'.

Second: what is the long term plan for those members of the EU who are already here? Is there to be a moritorium for them, with new regulations only coming in for new arrivals (quite difficult to police that one, I would have thought). Take one of my friends who works in television. She's Italian, been here 20 years and has contributed a great deal to the UK economy.Is she going to have to apply for a visa?

For me, it just wont do to say (as some were on Question Time last night) that we would wait for the referendum and then work out what to do. I want to know some of those details, or at least what the aim of the following negotiations would be, and some reason to think why they might be successful (not just 'Europe needs us').