The problem with Johnson’s Brexit deal

Boris Johnson has delivered a deal that I must admit is miles better than I had anticipated. Mind you, I had feared the worst. But this Brexit deal still does not justify the plaudits it is receiving.

Let’s start with the good bits. Great Britain (as opposed to the UK) will, on 1 January, be out of the Single Market, largely free of the European Court of Justice and able to make its own laws. We will be able to trade in goods with the EU free of tariffs and quotas. Yet without wishing to detract from the importance of these achievements, there is very little else that is good in the agreement and which could not otherwise be achieved.

The Trade and Cooperation agreement (TCA) does not in any way unpick the pernicious Northern Irish Protocol. Northern Ireland will, to all intents and purposes, remain in the EU’s Customs Union, subject to dynamic alignment with EU State Aid law, VAT and excise duties, and there will be a border down the Irish Sea.