Someone explain to me why joining the Pan Pacific bloc (other side of the world) is absolutely fine for Brexiters but joining the Single Market on our doorstep (which is no the same as rejoining the EU) isn’t?

Also worth noting, we already had free trade agreements with the majority of nations in the CPTPP when we were in the EU and we’ve rolled those over since leaving. The only nations it would give us access to are Malaysia and Brunei.

The CPTPP nations account for 9% of UK exports (less than we export to Germany)

So I’ll ask again. Why are the UK govt pursuing membership of CPTPP whilst refusing to pursue membership of the Single Market which makes up 43% of our exports and 52% of our imports?