This is a hobby-horse of mine and so I will continue to bang this drum even though others have done the same: the past does not matter for an FTA. The future does. It is not about being aligned, it is about committing, legally, to being aligned in the future (thread).
The EU is asking for level-playing field commitments and the political declaration is making clear that the less trade barriers you want, the more LPF you need. To some extent this Is reminiscent of something the EU Committee of the House of Lords said a long time ago 
And we absolutely need to improve debate about this. Because I have heard repeatedly “of course we’ll stay close”, but always in the abstract, non-specific. An FTA will require specificity. We’ll have high standards? How do we show. We’ll stay aligned? Where precisely.
Alternatively we can say “we don’t want to be bound anywhere” and then get a weak FTA. But what I would find irritating is to risk a good trading system for the illusion of making your own choices and the reality of alignment.
Is this all rational from the EU in the light of the fact that we CURRENTLY are aligned? Well, we’ve also repeated every second day that we can finally change everything. So...
... in light of this I now conclude that actually being aligned is in some respects a psychological disadvantage: Because we know we don’t want the same alignment, but cannot agree on any detail, so we insist it’s easy because of the current status, but fail to discuss the future
