Boris's 'Buy British' plan shows how Brexit has changed the Tories

Where to start with the Conservatives’ “Buy British” promises to end EU state aid rules?

The obvious point is that dumping rules that prevent governments subsidising domestic firms will make it much harder to strike a trade deal with the EU after Brexit. Limiting state aid is pretty much fundamental to the EU’s very existence and operations; arguably the story of the EU since the late 1980s is a story of trying to drag European politicians away from protecting favoured sectors and firms and opening their economies up to cross-border competition.

Of course, that story isn’t much told in the UK where, thanks not least to the sort of journalism once practiced by Boris Johnson, most people believe the EU is an exercise in anti-competitive protectionism. Perhaps that was once true, but then came the Single Market and leaders including a certain Margaret Thatcher, who turned the EU into something very different.