This deal is no achievement.

Johnson’s incoming victorious rhetoric is flat out deceitful.

This deal we expect to be announced is a deal that was always there to be made. No last minute concessions have been wrung out, the UK just decided it fancied being reasonable at the last minute, faced with the tariffs a WTO exit would inflict on an already dire economy, as has always been Johnson’s plan from the start.

This is going to be touted as a win, a political success. I’m sceptical as to how much of a boost this’ll give the Tories, considering the much more pressing and immediate catastrophe unfolding in people’s everyday lives right now, but it will be something Johnson can wheel out for bragging rights at a later date.

The pundit class have been taken for a ride. They’ve acted as government propagandists at every turn, buying into the talking up of No Deal, buying into every briefing with zero scepticism, and playing the whole thing as political drama rather than the dull reality of bogged down trade negotiations.

This deal will be thin, inadequate, and almost certainly not the end state of our perma-shifting relationship with continental Europe. Any number of possibilities linger, such as further negotiations under Johnson, a closer settlement under a future Labour government, or even the unappealing prospect of Rejoin a decade or two down the line.

The left shouldn’t be salivating to Rejoin a neoliberal bankers club. How any socialist, in their heart of hearts, can endorse Remain remains a puzzle to me. The left must combat any post-exit Johnsonian deregulatory efforts, any race to the bottom trade deals, and any other efforts by the disaster capitalists at the steering wheel of government, by shaming them into climbing down, and uniting the public behind the demand for higher, not lower, post-Brexit protections and standards, and building those into Labour’s future offering to the electorate.

Freedom from the iron collar of the EU’s capitalist constitution presents the opportunity for a major break with the status quo further down the line, and allows us to fight for, and bring out, wholesale reinvention of our economic model. Let’s recognise this, and begin the base for a progressive post-Brexit settlement, not a return to an abusive relationship.