Some belated thoughts on what the UK/EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement means for civil society (not that belated as we'll be talking about its consequences for years and years...)

1. The EU remains a regulatory super-power and what it decides for the regulation of its single market will be followed by UK companies who want to trade. So EU policies will still matter to UK.

(Sometimes seemed like Brexiteers pre-2016 imagined EU would cease to exist once UK decided to leave, which would have made their lives much easier)

2. In addition, with the TCA EU has say if UK decides to diverge from EU framework on things like employment rights and environment if they affect trading relationship/competitive advantage. Again, EU policies will matter to UK civil society.

3. TCA has complex institutional framework on this. This includes a welcome Civil Society Forum, which hopefully can be used to open up any EU/UK political & official discussions on divergence to wider stakeholders. UK & EU also promise to consult on implementation of TCA.

4. It is likely that there will be political pressure to diverge from some. Part of this may be in response to economic costs of non-tariff barriers to trade with EU. But also Brexiteers will also want to ensure UK can never rejoin & divergence will make that more difficult.

(Brexit could probably only have been won in context of post-2008 stagnation plus immigration plus refugee crisis. Education level is biggest driver of view on Remain/Leave & expansion of higher education would have probably locked in Remain over time)

5. So civil society in UK should be prepared for pressures for divergence (with risks on issues like employment and environment) & should seek to influence new institutional framework so it has a strong voice in this.

6. UK civil society should also still care about EU policies, including for impact on UK. UK govt has no formal role in policy making now so UK civil society should engage with pan-European umbrella bodies (like @DafneHQ & @The_EFC for foundations)

7. As the UK government will lose its right to take part in EU policy formulation, paradoxically it may well be the case that UK organisations will spend just as much time – if not more – working with European partners to try and influence the EU than they did before Brexit.