Basic problem with Gove's letter to Šefčovič is not the identification of issues, but the connection of these with failure of Protocol (thus necessitating possible use of Art.16)
So, now we've all slept on it, a possibly less hot take
AZ/Art.16 mess highlights importance of UK being closely across EU/COM activity, because it will affect UK and there's no one permanently in place to look after UK interests
1/
UK is now a third country and so will always come after member states in political calculations.
Fortunate to have IE looking after Protocol, and Barnier to still be around, to unpick the situation last night, but might not apply to other situations
2/
Thus UK needs to maintain working links with all parts of COM to head off issues and make sure there's someone to phone if it does go wrong
3/
Just to underline the key points of this: the TCA highlights the extent to which the UK remains entangled in a dense web of international commitments, post EU-membership
With several hundred references to over 110 multilateral commitments of various kinds, the UK will find that the control it was claiming to get back will be closely bound by an international system that's very different from 1973
Those commitments are mainly focused in trade (as you'd expect), but reach across the board, into health, food and human rights
Thanks to the enlightened decision of @UniOfSurreyFASS to give us book tokens instead of an Xmas party, I will be reading lots of Dickens in 2021, since I've not done so before
Last year I read all the books in my pile that had got stuck there, so now that's done I'm trying something new this year