Dominic Walsh: What would No Deal mean for trade beyond the EU?

While trade deals have taken on an important political and symbolic value, their benefits are typically smaller and slower to materialise than many realise.

Dominic Walsh: What a customs union does and doesn’t do – and how it compares to the backstop.

Precisely because it would be a rather unnecessary addition to the current deal, it is hard to argue that the proposal would be a disaster for Brexit.

Dominic Walsh: The EU and the backstop. This “rules-based organisation” has shown flexibility before. As it can and should now.

In a new briefing, Open Europe explores four examples when the EU, confronted with domestic obstacles to ratification, has revisited deals it had already signed off.

Dominic Walsh: The backstop must be temporary. It can’t just be a bridge to…itself.

Cox told the Cabinet that the EU’s admittance that the backstop can be temporary was a step forward. He is right, although the devil will be in the detail.