Anticipating the news that the UK has formally applied to join the Trans Pacific Partnership, Shadow Trade Secretary Emily Thornberry made an extraordinary comparison in The Observer yesterday. Revealing that either she doesn’t understand what the CPTPP is, or she does and is deliberately twisting the truth…

“… people will rightly ask why we have been through five years of debate in Britain over leaving a trade bloc with our closest neighbours only to rush into joining another one on the other side of the world without any meaningful public consultation at all”

Needless to say, the CPTPP is nothing like the EU. The dynamic trade partnership does not legislate on behalf of its members, control or cock up vaccine orders, require the ceding of control over laws, money, borders, or external tariffs. It does not have a flag, a national anthem, a legislature, judiciary, or a president. In other words, it is a free trade area. Not a burgeoning federal state demanding ambassadors at the Court of St James.

If the EU didn’t prevent the UK from independently signing trade deals with other countries, having control over our laws, money, and borders, then Brexiteers would not have a problem with it. Guido is amazed that after five years, Labour Party remainers are still too thick to understand what Brexit was about.