Very important analysis, especially given the current govt fixation on the auto industry and Made in Europe. Savour UKICE while you still can!

Very sad news but also a chance to say that I could not have been prouder to have spent the last five years at UKICE. Brilliant people doing vital work in an incredibly fun and supportive environment. We may be winding down but the need for our kind of work is very much not!

I wouldn't read it so literally. It is not meant to imply that can you move sequentially from one step to the next. It is meant to illustrate a menu of discrete choices, with the steps serving to demarcate them by GDP impact/level of political integration. Similarly to the Barnier original.

Besides tech stuff, there is also plenty of more 'traditional' EU-led divergence: i.e. technical rule changes related to goods which are disruptive to trade. Much of this stems from environmental-focused regulation .

We know the Burnham govt is quite interested in tech sovereignty issues, and so there is lots to learn from the EU's approach (not all of it necessarily positive) including more scope for coordinated action.

But another thing it tells us is that it is taking major strides to try and increase its 'tech sovereignty', e.g. though more domestic cloud capacity/chip production - reducing dependence on third country suppliers. This looks like being a major EU policy agenda in the coming years.

One thing this tells us is that the EU has been far less worried about the UK than antagonising the US by launching investigations into big tech - the result of which has been firmer action to address anti-competitive practices/online safety issues.

Big day in UK politics... The new divergence tracker is out! What is most striking in this edition is the large degree of EU-led divergence over tech/digital policy.

On holiday last week, I read A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel’s marvellous novel about the French Revolution. Because I’m a huge nerd who struggles to switch off, several passages about the use of the guillotine for public executions made me think about the economic impacts of AI...

"Von der Leyen’s ambition to ‘to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible’ is deliciously vague: it implies some limit on the extent of possible cooperation, but does not tell us where it exactly lies." ✍️ @jreland.bsky.social on the prospect of associate membership of the EU

A more developed take on the new EU-Canada deal and what it means for the UK. In sum: no one knows what 'associate membership' means yet; it probably won't grant much privileged access to the single market; and it's politically much easier to do with Canada than the UK.

A lot of excitement about this but the 'highest level possible' is a brilliantly vague phrase. And for those who see it as a potential door opening for the UK, two things to bear in mind. 1) Canada is not the UK - much further away, much less recent baggage.