The EU is going to play hard ball. It wants a stack of level playing field provisions that go way beyond what it normally asks, primarily because we have a similar economy to the mainstream EU and we are in close proximity to it. It doesn't want unfair competition, and were we to be uncharitable we could arguably say it wants no competition at all. And why should it?
Primarily though it does not see any reason to allow the UK to undermine its own system by admitting goods made in conditions that undercut its own on standards and labour rights. Signing up to those provisions along with non-regression clauses, therefore, flies in the face of the UK's quest for sovereignty. If then we are to take Johnson and his chancellor at their word (that there shall be no alignment) then there will be a corresponding reduction in market access. We can expect only a bare bones deal.
Much will now depend on how the EU plays it. If the EU is at all rigid in requiring flanking policies then we end up with no deal at all, unless Johnson caves in - which probably won't happen. The thing is that Johnson and the people round him are stupid enough to believe that the EU will cave in at the eleventh hour and give the UK some concessions. Thus, there is every incentive for Johnson to go to the wire. But if the EU doesn't then cave in, we are well and truly screwed because there is no legal way that we can extend the transition once the July deadline is past.
If we assume the EU seeks to avoid a no deal predicament then we might well expect some foot dragging in opening the negotiations or a row over sequencing, cutting the time short so as to box Johnson into extending. That, though, is a huge gamble. Johnson has put much stock in sticking to his deadline and his mantra of "getting Brexit done".
Arguably the EU could make some concessions on the level playing field (LPF) provisions, employing looser equivalence mechanisms where possible but equivalence has limited application. But when any closer trade cooperation is contingent on LPF, the EU has the stronger leverage. Or at least that would be the case were they dealing with a country working in its own best interests. Not so in this instance where the Tory groupthink believes they need us more than we need them (yes, they still think that) and that there is an unregulated wild west awaiting us where divergence will open up boundless opportunities.
Being though that the EU has FTAs with most of the ranking economies, forming up on global standards and regulations, the scope for divergence is minimal as is the value in doing so. The prevalence of global standards still fails to permeate the debate with even major industry bodies like the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders still speaking of "EU standards" when UNECE is at the core of vehicle regulation.
Being that there is no educating or dissuading the Tories away from their folly it looks at this time like we are going to have to learn the hard way. If we take only a bare bones deal Johnson will no doubt be praised for not caving into EU demands, but we are then excluded from a number of lucrative markets and in the position of having to rebuild our trade relationship from scratch over the next decade, and getting weaker the longer we are excluded. The EU can the call the shots.
Previously I'd argued that just about any deal is better than no deal, but if the Tories only went through the motions of a withdrawal agreement to get around the last obstructive parliament only to land us with a skeleton deal or no trade deal at all, thus being bound by the provisions of the Northern Ireland protocol, then actually we may as well not have have bothered. No deal was actually better than a cack-handed sham of a negotiation with no intention of going the whole distance toward a functioning bilateral relationship.
The sad truth is that though Johnson can duck the issue and please the Brexit mob in the short term, at some point we have to go back to Brussels because in any case we need a deep and comprehensive partnership with the EU where all of the same dilemma are present and the EU's technical constraints remain the same. At some point we have to confront those dilemmas and by leaving without a comprehensive treaty Johnson is just kicking the issue into the long grass doing a great deal of wholly unnecessary damage in the meantime. The opportunity for Labour to have a field day is enormous.
This is where Boris Johnson needs to be thinking about his own exit strategy. He won't want to be around to face the music when Brexit starts to implode. Either way he's done for. He either delivers the ultra Brexit the grunters crave (thus knackering the economy) or he signs up to a raft of LPF measures followed by further concessions on trade governance, ECJ dispute resolution, and major concessions on fishing, thus defeating the object of Brexit in the eyes of many. Johnson just can't win.
That said, it was never going to be the Tories who defined the final basis of future relationship. That was always going to fall to whoever is left to clean up the mess. The Tories made that a certainty the moment they rejected the Efta option, and having done so, unless the option can be revived then we will be back on a trajectory to trade and regulatory integration under ECJ supervision. Hugely and sadly ironic since that's what the Ultras claimed the Efta option was.
At the centre of this omnishambles is an unshakable Tory arrogance. Thanks to the refusal to plan, resulting in a failure to anticipate the ambushes and bear traps, they're going to get a much deserved humbling. There are five difficult years between now and the next election and if Labour chooses its leadership wisely and exploits the open goal left for them, Johnson may be leaving a legacy as the man who burned the Tory party to the ground just for a stint in office. Hardly the Churchillian legend he sees in the mirror.
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