Essential reading from Ivan Rogers: Nine Lessons we must learn from the last two years, if Brexit is not to do lasting damage to our economy, our democracy and to faith in politics. Short summary follows. news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/12/13/ful… 
1. "Brexit means Brexit". This is "a major regime change, with massive political, legal, economic and social consequences", in which “the EU is negotiating with us, not as a member, but as a prospective soon-to-be third country”.
2. We need a more serious national debate about sovereignty, "in a world order in which modestly sized nation states have relatively little say".
3. "Breezy assertions" & "empty bluster" are no substitute for a willingness "to recognise the complexity & longevity of the exit process, work out our viable options, achieve clarity about where we wanted to land, having worked honestly through the very tough choices we faced".
4. "It is not possible or democratic to argue that only one Brexit destination is true, legitimate and represents the revealed “Will of the People” and that all other potential destinations outside the EU are “Brexit in Name Only”."
5. "If WTO terms or existing EU preferential deals are not good enough for the UK in major third country markets, they can’t be good enough for trade with our largest market".
6. "The huge problem for the UK with either reversion to WTO terms or with a standard free trade deal with the EU is in services". "For all the imperfections of the Single Market, services trade between Member States is ... freer than it is between the federal states of the US".
7. (a) “Beware all supposed deals bearing “pluses”. “The “pluses” merely signify that all deficiencies in the named deal will miraculously disappear when we Brits come to negotiate our own version of it.”
7. (b) That applies especially to "No deal+", the fantasy that "No deal" would be fine as the EU would agree a suite of "mini deals". The reality would be "disruption on a scale and of a length that no-one has experienced in the developed world in the last couple of generations".
8. Transparency is a help, not a hindrance in international negotiations. The government's bovine insistence on secrecy has shut down serious debate at home and has done nothing to educate public opinion.
9. Most importantly: "real honesty with the public is the best – the only – policy if we are to get to the other side of Brexit with a healthy democracy, a reasonably unified country and a healthy economy".
For the full lecture, see news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/12/13/ful…. Well worth 30 minutes of your time, whatever your preferences on Brexit. [ENDS]
