Ok, here we go with the White Paper thread. Overall impression, kid in the first year of senior school applying to join the sixth form. Trying to understand what that means and not really succeeding. 1/ assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
My favourite paragraph so far below. Our experts should be consulted on the same basis as Member States in line with existing third country relationships. This is nonsense, but based on trying to make an FTA into the EEA. There's a lot of this 2/ 
On food. The EU already has equivalence arrangements on organic food, so can we have an equivalence arrangement on everything? I would love to know how many hundred thousand pages the EU rulebook is on agriculture... 3/
By the way the EU is welcome to try to keep some Geographical Indications but we're not going to necessarily agree. The EU wouldn't even give you an FTA on this basis. Pure west country farmhouse cheddar cheesecake as we may say 4/
On services this paragraph could mean a standard EU FTA or something greater, we're none the wiser. But we don't mention the EU has existing MFN commitments in trade agreements 5/
By the way could you also invent a specific Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications framework for us as we like the EU one but are leaving. Canada doesn't cut it for us... 6/
Not surprisingly we get arrogance in the financial services section. I did like this sentence, we might need higher than global standards you know, something the EU obviously wouldn't dream of... 7/
Ultimate cakeism here. We want autonomy in financial services regulation. Two paragraphs later we want equivalence. So still hanging onto the idea that as we start in the same place we can have equivalence even if we want to change 8/
Apologies this goes over a page but for mobility we're in GATS commitment territory. That's back to an FTA model then 9/
This sounds virtuous but is standard in trade agreements. We also say the same about labour clauses. Which are also standard. 10/
I noticed nothing particularly new or exciting on trade policy, the standard stuff on there being lots of opportunities, but no actual detail on what these might be. It's only been two years we've had to try and work these out. 11/
Despite pre-briefing the US stays in the list of new trade agreements. But CPTPP is added, specifically saying this is compatible with the EU relationship. I'm not 100% sure that's correct 12/
The trade policy section is actually spectacularly bad. Even after two years there's just a mention of mutual recognition of conformity assessment, and no mention of all the extra trade diplomacy work the UK Gov will have to do to replace EU work 13/
If this is the best we can do on services after two years you can't have too much confidence in future UK trade policy to deliver anything in particular 14/
Does the Government have any idea how much legislation the EU passes every year? It doesn't appear to have from this reference... 15/
Another example of trying to suggest we are equally as important as the EU - what to do if there's a disagreement over regulation 16
Finally for now a few people are getting excited about the use of the term Association Agreement. They shouldn't. As I've said before that is just a wrapper for various things, so it's fine but not meaningful 17/
Conclusion for now. As starting point to talks about future economic partnership, unrealistic but a start. To avoid a hard border. Unrealistic. To unstick negotiations, wrong timing, what's this got to do with a Northern Ireland backstop? 18/ end
Postscript 1: Thanks @james_clark who noticed this paragraph suggesting the UK would sign up to the backstop with the intention of never using it. If I was the media and MPs I think I would probe this area more than any other
Postscript 2: Apologies those directed at my thread and not seeing anything about various parts like security cooperation - decided to focus on those areas where I could bring some knowledge to proceedings
Postscript 3: Initial reflection an hour on. This feels like a load of random stuff from different trade agreements and other relationships stuck together. It's what a UK-EU agreement designed by an inexpert committee might look like
Postscript 4: after intermission... As pointed out by @EdConwaySky an extraordinary request for the EU to renegotiate all of their Free Trade Agreements to ensure UK included in supply chains... I suppose we can ask...
