The UK and the EU say they want a trade deal with each other but this will not be easy. Some are arguing that we start from a position of alignment and so this will be the easiest trade deal in history. But this is not the case, because in one sense it is unprecedented. Never has a deal been done to make trade between nations more difficult than it was before, but that is what leaving a single market means.
Then there is a question of time. The more complex the relationship, the more likely it is to count as a so-called “mixed agreement” which needs to be ratified by all 27 EU national parliaments—and also regional parliaments in states like Belgium. This will take months, so the deal will need to be concluded by early autumn 2020; a lack of time will itself limit the ambition of any deal. This brings us to structure and content. For the EU, any agreement needs to be contained in a single “governance” wrapper. This would require a role for the European Court of Justice in the event that EU law is engaged. And the EU also wants the UK to comply with level-playing-field conditions—with rules on state aid and social, environmental and consumer matters—to avoid the UK, a large economy on its western flank, from undercutting its standards. It also wants access to the UK’s waters for fishing.
For the UK, this is totally unacceptable. London wants a number of separate agreements with the EU on different aspects of trade, each with its own governance arrangements and definitely no role for the European court. It is also allergic to any suggestion of compliance with the level playing field. This makes a trade deal difficult to achieve. Negotiators will do all they can to avoid it, but we may reach a point where a no-trade-deal Brexit becomes unavoidable.