One of the MAIN arguments on the leave side was that we could make our own trade agreements with countries outside the EU. This would mean being outside of the customs union.
One of the MAIN arguments on the remain side was that we sell that much to the EU if we leave the customs union it would have a negative (or catrastophic as people like to say these days) impact.
It was said by the leave campaign that when we leave we would get a beneficial trade agreement with the EU due to the amount import from the EU. We haven't left yet.
To say no one knew that leaving the EU meant leaving the Customs Union is not correct. Everyone should have known if they were paying any attention.
The MAIN takeaway is that lots of different and incompatible claims were made by many parties and everybody had their of different fantasy of what leave would look like including every politician.
You say everybody should have known we'd leave customs union, but we even had prominent leavers saying we'd stay in single market and even Farage saying things like we could aspire for a Norway like model:
https://youtu.be/0xGt3QmRSZY
Maybe its you who wasn't paying attention or only saw what you wanted to see.
There won't be a revoke of article 50 , there won't be a second referendum , MV3 will be voted down on monday and I suspect MV4 on Thursday will be too .
Which leaves crashing out by default , this is now looking like reality .
The time for the could be's and maybe's are over .
Things are going to be rocky for a while but we will live , I've gone through hard times in the 80's , 90's , 2000 s and even fairly recently .
Things will eventually settle down and pick back up , it always does .
The EU isn't the be all and end all of this country , never was and never will be .
Fuq em .