Just how much political capital can Johnson risk on an EU trade deal?

In broad-brush terms, the difference between a Ceta-type deal and the backstop of the WTO framework is of only marginal significance. That’s partly because the destruction from Covid has rendered the economics of Brexit virtually irrelevant. But it is also because trade deals, despite the political importance attached to them, don’t actually do an awful lot for GDP.

Modelling by UK in a Changing Europe, the research organisation, suggests only a very small difference between the two outcomes – that income per head after 10 years would be 2.5pc lower under Johnson’s favoured, Ceta-style, deal compared with staying in the EU, and 3.3pc lower under WTO terms.

Why, then, are we even bothering, particularly as there must be some kind of countervailing upside, if correctly used, from having a completely free hand on divergence?

It’s a good question. All the same, it’s hard to disagree with Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, who in a recent blog argued that something must be better than nothing. A bare bones FTA may not make much difference in overall economic terms, but aggregates are often misleading and to certain industries, particularly auto and agricultural produce, tariff-free trade remains of the utmost importance. For some communities, it is a make-or-break matter.

It would also help with a less tangible but equally important goal, which would be to provide a framework for reasonably amicable future economic and diplomatic relations with the EU.

Negotiators on both sides are too boxed into their various positions to be able to compromise. They just don’t have the authority. As with the Withdrawal Agreement, it will require political intervention to break the impasse. But just how much political capital are Johnson, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron prepared to risk trying to achieve it?