I think that unfortunately because they are members of the single market', they could not operate unilaterally, though maybe they wish they could. We can trade unilaterally with any other country in the world once free from EU and will be able to bid for trade that is specifically in the interests of UK and not the 27others.
I always likened the single market to living on a housing estate, where you had to ask permission to buy any furniture, ideally you would buy from a neighbour. If not the neighbours set how much you could spend , what colour it must be and before the actual purchase would have to view it and everyone would have to say yes it looks okay.
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We keep harking on that we want 'access to the single market' but I'm increasingly thinking 'why?' 
isn't that a bit like doing all your shopping in the same, one supermarket through sheer laziness or pure convenience? Seems we've put all our eggs in one basket for rather too long.
So let's start thinking about doing a deal with Germany re imports and exports of cars for example, and France for wine and cheese, Greece for olive oil, Italy for something or other and so on.
Divide and rule.
And if they don't want to do a unilateral deal then we'll either look elsewhere or make it/grown it ourselves.
just saying
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