Sam Bright summarises the key issues with the UK’s attempts to forge new economic alliances after leaving the world’s largest trading bloc.

AROUND the same time yesterday that Boris Johnson was urging MPs to back his post- Brexit trade deal with the EU, Brussels was tying up a deal of its own.

Another Brexit advertising campaign. They've replaced sporting events as signs of the changing seasons. Instead of Wimbledon or the Olympics, we get Michael Gove talking gibberish on television and further millions poured into preparedness exercises for an outcome with no tangible benefits.

Shortened trade talks will result in ‘flimsy’ deal, former British prime minister says

Brexit is a Tory invention and pro-Europeans must still fight the prospect of EU exile, writes Will Hutton.

Philip Hammond - Tariff free trade deals would only contribute a tiny amount to our GDP... so we must quash "this myth that third country trade deals will solve all our problems"

Beijing has made it clear that it would welcome an FTA with the UK with “open arms” and has stated that it would make a “top notch” deal. However, other influences will come into play to negate that, a point little understood by many UK-China analysts.

Increasingly, doing business with China involves a certain loss of sovereign power. / No matter how appealing a trade deal between Britain and China, it comes with costs. For a start, greater trade with China invariably means larger trade deficits.

Our analysis indicates that a UK-China FTA will be neither easy nor clearly advanta-geous for the UK.