It's a positive first step, hopefully with more to come on youth mobility

Fish is a rounding error in GDP terms for both sides but the sanitary/phytosanitary stuff should open markets for our produce. A bigger deal would be something around conformity/CE marking for machinery etc and maybe something there is possible in the next year or two I don't know. UK access to this defence fund is a no brainer for both sides and fish (unbelievably) was getting in the way of that so it's good this piece of grit is no longer in the system. There will be economic benefits, albeit not huge ones. Allowing EU students to study here and pay overseas student rates should be a no-brainer; EU wants them to pay domestic student rates which is not going to happen of course; hopefully we end up somewhere sensible on that as the HE sector needs the funds quite desperately.

Rejoining will probably not happen in my lifetime but I can't help thinking that some closer alignment e.g. rejoining the customs union or single market (latter probably more likely than the former but who can say) will become an active topic maybe as early as the next election and certainly in the early 2030s or so.

Posted By: Old Man, May 19, 09:38:13