Currency speculators at some of the hedge funds in Mayfair may be feeling quietly pleased. Trade experts will be relieved that their lucrative consultancy gigs will keep on coming. Heck, even financial columnists can safely pontificate about the possible outcome for a while yet, while the FBPE mob on Twitter can carry on predicting the apocalypse every time Nissan adjusts its production schedules. There are a few people for whom today’s agreement between Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to carry on discussing a trade deal will come as a relief. For the wider economy, however, it is little short of a disaster.
It is hard to know exactly what there is still to discuss between Britain and the EU. Four years after the referendum, and heading towards its fifth anniversary, there can hardly be a wrinkle on level-playing fields, a species of fish, or a sub-clause on regulatory alignment, dynamic or otherwise, that hasn’t been discussed in exhaustive detail.
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