We don’t have to swap sovereignty for trade

A new court will be established with powers over both countries. Labour and product laws will be harmonised. Flags with kangaroos and crowns will flutter over buildings, there will be a special parliament moving weekly from Cairns to Coventry and an anthem that mashes up Rolf Harris and The Beatles will be played at every opportunity. 

There were lots of things that could have been in the Australian-UK trade deal that was finally agreed today but which aren’t. In truth, the most significant point about the deal is not what it includes, but what it doesn’t. It liberalises trade, reduces tariffs and at the margin will help the economies of both countries. But it is stripped of all the supra-national baggage that the EU and its dwindling band of supporters insist are essential to ‘free trade’ — and for that very reason it is vastly superior to Europe’s creaking, overly-complex single market.