1. We are currently staring over the precipice of no deal. Everyone, including many of those who argued for Brexit, understand the damage it would do, especially at the same time as the Covid economic crisis and the end of the transition period. We are facing a perfect storm.

2. It’s pretty clear now that the level playing field is the cause of the deadlock. It seems that the UK and the EU have already agreed a non-regression clause – ie that both sides won’t reduce existing standards on things like environmental protection and workers rights.
3. But the issue is what happens if EU standards diverge from ours in the years ahead and vice versa. In other words, how do you make sure that the playing field that both sides run out onto on 1 Jan remains level in the years ahead?
4. In the Political Declaration both sides signed up to robust level playing field commitments to “prevent distortions of trade and unfair competitive advantages.” That’s why both the UK and the EU should want a mechanism for ensuring that the terms of trade remain fair.
5. The other consideration is that trust was undermined by the row over the Internal Market Bill. Seeking to renege on part of a Treaty you negotiated a year ago is not a very good idea, especially when you’re trying to negotiate a new Treaty with the same partners now.
6. The areas of dispute are these. How do you identify whether different standards are in practice affecting fair competition? Who decides? And at what point in the process can one side take action against the other to ‘re-level’ the playing field?
7. The other issue is that because this arrangement will last for a very long time, both sides are trying to protect their interests and guard against something happening in future which they don’t want.
8. One way of avoiding the problem for now would be to have a review clause; ie an agreement that after say 5 yrs both sides could look at these LPF rules and the link to the degree of access that the UK has been given to the EU single market and decide whether they are working.
9. This would allow time to see whether the concerns – the UK view of sovereignty on the one hand and the EU fear that the UK will gain a competitive advantage over German, French and other countries’ firms on the other - is really something that we need to worry about.
10. Both sides need a deal - after all jumping off a cliff isn’t going to be good for anyone.
What’s needed now is a willingness on both sides to sort this out in the interests of all our futures.

More from Brexit

Two excellent questions at the end of a very sensible thread summarising the post-Brexit UK FP debate. My own take at attempting to offer an answer - ahead of the IR is as follow:


1. The two versions have a converging point: a tilt to the Indo-pacific doesn’t preclude a role as a convening power on global issues;
2. On the contrary, it underwrites the credibility for leadership on global issues, by seeking to strike two points:

A. Engaging with a part of the world in which world order and global issues are central to security, prosperity, and - not least - values;
B. Propelling the UK towards a more diversified set of economic, political, and security ties;

3. The tilt towards the Indo-Pacific whilst structurally based on a realist perception of the world, it is also deeply multilateral. Central to it is the notion of a Britain that is a convening power.
4. It is as a result a notion that stands on the ability to renew diplomacy;

5. It puts in relation to this a premium on under-utilised formats such as FPDA, 5Eyes, and indeed the Commonwealth - especially South Pacific islands;
6. It equally puts a premium on exploring new bilateral and multilateral formats. On former, Japan, Australia. On latter, Quad;
This very short article by Jeremy Cliffe is the best thing I have ever read on Brexit and the EU. It pivots on the contrast between Delors’ and Thatcher’s authentically provincial Christian visions and suggests the battle in Britain between the two is not over.


Thatcher: Protestant believer in the totally free market and absolutely sovereign centralised nation state. Delors: Catholic believer in third way personalism, corporatism and federalism. Individualism versus relational love. Heterodoxy versus Orthodoxy.

The article useful gives the lie to the idea that the Catholic vision of the EU has altogether vanished even though it is weakened. Delors wanted a social dimension to the free market and single currency and yet lexiteers laughably insist the EU is more neoliberal than the U.K.!

Subsidiary federalism is a doctrine of democracy and human fraternity. State sovereignty is a doctrine of naked power. It is a face of Antichrist. Leviathan.

Those combined that democracy can only be inside a single state fail to power just how much of private law and evermore so is necessarily international. Thus if political institutions don’t extend over borders there can be no democracy.

You May Also Like

12 TRADING SETUPS which experts are using.

These setups I found from the following 4 accounts:

1. @Pathik_Trader
2. @sourabhsiso19
3. @ITRADE191
4. @DillikiBiili

Share for the benefit of everyone.

Here are the setups from @Pathik_Trader Sir first.

1. Open Drive (Intraday Setup explained)


Bactesting results of Open Drive


2. Two Price Action setups to get good long side trade for intraday.

1. PDC Acts as Support
2. PDH Acts as


Example of PDC/PDH Setup given