Beware of articles saying that 'all' the UK have to do to get an ambitious free trade deal with the EU is to sign up to labour and environment commitments. Those are normal for any EU agreements - the UK will almost certainly have to sign up for lots more ft.com/content/701f83…
"Free trade" with the EU in a UK-EU Free Trade Agreement will be trade with barriers and tariffs. And to get even that expect the EU to have significant asks of the UK that will take some time to establish, but could well include widespread regulatory alignment.
For the UK government and companies operating in the UK the question will have to be which are the most important barriers to trade to avoid in a trade deal - are they tariffs, or services access, customs, product testing, food and drink etc?
I'm expecting to have to repeat these tweets on a regular basis in the coming months while we continue the same nonsense of the last three years that the EU will offer us everything we want - full free trade - without UK commitments or choices. Not happening.
Never mind 11 months to negotiate a trade deal it could easily take 11 months and longer for the UK Government and cheerleaders to realise the EU won't give us everything we want in a preferential trade deal at no cost to us. Expect many complaints about the 'inflexible' EU...
NB on the domestic politics of a future UK-EU trade deal, also expect trouble. ERG will be happy with no-deal, but business and other conservatives will not. Labour, Lib Dems, SNP will also support closer ties. Without x-party consensus trade deals are really difficult
Basically for the next five years EU negotiations and disentanglement are likely to continue to dominate UK government if there's a Conservative majority. Labour has had ample time to point this out and has failed to do so.
