Thread by @DavidHenigUK

Very very slowly UK government, politicians and businesses are realising what third country means to the EU, no special financial services or food paperwork arrangements, largely symbolic joint committees, and hard work to change anything. ft.com/content/310ec0…

Too many people have taken the joint committees established under the Withdrawal Agreement and Trade and Cooperation Agreement - these are not serious bodies in other EU agreements (the NI Protocol arrangements are - rightly - more substantive).

Any UK requests for changes for improvements to EU trade will require heavy lifting - whether to streamline paperwork, get better visa conditions for musicians, or establish proper financial services equivalence. That's how loose trade arrangements work.

That's how it works for all UK external trade arrangements now - hard work to achieve any improvements. No cake of special treatment from EU or anyone else. We chose against integration.

Get the feeling few MPs or businesses understood that. Still don't in many cases.

"But trade is good so why are the evil protectionist EU stopping making things better?"

Let me introduce you to my friends from the US / any other country... they have their rules for their reasons, as do we, and are reluctant to change them even for the UK...

How many UK sectors have a joint UK government / EU lobbying strategy to achieve their goals with regard to UK-EU trade? Not many as far as I can tell. But that's going to be necessary.

Whether the government yells for the benefit of the UK media, or delivers road maps as asked by the Commission, the fundamentals are we can no longer expect to get what we need in terms of EU trade. We chose against it. Better get used to the fact.

True I think - and it extends very widely in the UK since so few had seen what an EU-third country relationship was really like.

https://twitter.com/BEERG/status/1377947575626653696