The problem of one country being able to easily offload dodgy goods onto another country is made easier by a 'common market'.

That is one way of looking at it. I would say it is the absence of border checks and failure to meet agreed standards that make it easy. Those may be features of a common market, but are not limited to common markets.

So do you want us to have border checks on food? And do you want us to be able to insist on higher food standards than those given in the article, 'race to the top' style?

By the way, there is some 'good news' in a forecast just out from the 'Economists for Free Trade' which predicts a financial benefit of leaving Brexit. Just a few problems with that:

- our Leavers dismiss all forecasting, so they are logically obliged to dismiss this one as well
- it assumes zero costs of borders, so no way to monitor if that bad food turns up at the border.
- it tolerates the collapse of the UK food market and other sectors if the US and other undercut it. In previous forecasts one of the authors thought this inevitable.
- all of the authors are from the 'Economists for Free Trade' group, so it will be hard to demonstrate this is impartial.

And, as it happens, their assumptions are not compatible with the position paper given to Parliament today, at least in the short term, or, since it is effectively a 'Singapore style' approach, with Davis' latest statements.