There are reports that May’s ministers, in conversations with EU officials, reveal a surprising lack of knowledge of the details of how the EU actually works. This would explain the complete paralysis apparently gripping the government about how to proceed with Brexit, because their Brexiteers had literally no idea what was involved. It is established that the Brits love process and procedures. Most of our public services are bogged down with ever expanding nostrums of due process. We love and include in national life ceremonial procedures from centuries past. Within all these processes there is a flexible approach to rules, even, perhaps especially, within our constitution
The Continental countries, Germany in particular, are sticklers for detail and for rules. Work within those and the process will take care of itself. So the EU is built on rules which cannot be varied and details which are exact. The Brexiteers for long thought and continually asserted that the attraction of trade with Britain would cause the rest of the EU to agree sensible terms which amended details and changed rules. That will never happen. The sanctity of their rules is way above their interest in trade with GB. The BIG RULES will not change. They are free movement of capital, goods and people and contributions to the EU budget, over none of which is the UK parliament sovereign.
Essentially the Brexit case voted for in the referendum was that there should be free movement of capital and goods but controls on the movement of people and no further contributions to the EU Budget. Sovereignty over all of it would return to the UK parliament. This will not even be discussed. The reason the May government is holding a veil of secrecy over its negotiating position is because it finds it does not have one. There are no cards in its hand. There are no negotiations available. On the BIG RULES you either accept them or you go. It is either hard Brexit or No Brexit. It is not a negotiation but a choice. When that becomes clear to the House of Commons, and to the country at large, the May government will fall.