Thread by @lukecooper100

Rather than arguing about whether Labour advocated a soft Brexit (hard to see how it did given its rejection of FoM till Sept 2019), it's more useful to think about what arrangement we'd like in the future. Although I would have once said join EEA, don't think that would work now

The Tory aim of getting out of EU state aid rules is the right policy pursued for the wrong reasons. As the global economy changes, as deglobalisation takes hold, markets are more dependent on the state. State aid is crucial in this context but can easily become corporate welfare

Against the Tory crony capitalist model, a socialist or social democratic model of state aid should make it provisional on pursuing public goods - such as full employment, ecological sustainability, and industrial development.

While this isn't a million miles away from the EU system of 'exemptions', it's hard to justify choosing to be part of a system that you don't have any say over when you could pursue a negotiated position on regulatory alignment.

This wouldn't be a million miles away from the Swiss model of bilateral agreements. Interestingly, the EU anticipated the Swiss model would be a problem for the Brexit negotiations so pursued tougher institutionalisation of state subsidy rules in its last round of negotiation

On trade you'd likewise need some kind of bespoke arrangement, which replicated elements of the EU-Turkey deal granting customs free access to EU but tried to avoid the problem that Turkey doesn't benefit from EU access to other markets politico.eu/article/turkey…

We should keep FoM with the EU - by contrast a very simple policy, that is in everyone's interest. You could say the same about buying into other programmes like Horizon, Erasmus.

Like Switizerland, our relationship with the EU will be defined by permanent negotiations - so they'll never be over, Brexit will go on forever. It's never "done". And these policy changes could all go through the Joint Committee created by the Withdrawal Agreement.