Hailed by Tory MPs as a Brexit benefit, CPTPP membership actually turns the UK into a willing pawn in Washington’s geopolitical game.

While the picture’s hardly pretty and certainly not what advocates of Brexit envisioned, none of it surprises economists. As a former Bank of England official observed: “You run a trade war against yourself, bad things happen.”

One thing that hasn’t? Brexit, Britain’s exit from the European Union, is still a hot mess. / The latest chapter in the saga has the British government threatening to go “nuclear” and invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol—not good for already tense U.K.-E.U. relations.

The Brexit bills are starting to fall due for Boris Johnson just as the U.K. prime minister seeks to cast himself as a global statesman leading the Group of Seven’s fight to defeat Covid-19.

The PM is reportedly considering bypassing the Northern Ireland protocol so British sausages can continue to be sold there.

Ireland finally has one of its own in the White House. And Joe Biden’s arrival in the Oval Office may well prove pivotal in protecting the Northern Ireland peace process in the face of Brexit — Britain’s inexplicable decision to leave the world’s biggest trading partnership.

The results of the U.S. election will pose existential questions in London.