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Commenting on the Brexit deal, Charles Grant, director of think tank the Centre for European Reform, warned there were still uncertainties surrounding the UK-EU relationship going forward.Like Sir John, he also pointed to the sustainability of checks of goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland. Due to Northern Ireland remaining partly under EU single market and customs union, he warned some may be "tempted to tear up the NI protocol". 

Christian Odendahl of the Centre for European Reform says these “Merkel voters” include many women, people with migrant roots and centrists reassured by the chancellor’s incremental progressivism.

Sam Lowe, a trade expert at the Centre for European Reform who was previously also a member of the Government's Strategic Trade Advisory Group, has warned negotiations on financial services "could create political tension in the EU-UK relationship".He said Brussels is yet to decide on the issue of so-called "equivalence" - determining if the UK's rules and regulations are suitably compatible with its own that firms in London can have access to the EU market.

Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, said there were problems that could grow over coming weeks and months.“The new import/export formalities are proving problematic for many companies. The lack of obvious queues at the border disguises the fact that many trucks are stuck in depots, unable to head to the ports due to their clients failing to provide the necessary documentation and information.”

“The era of mixed consignments will pretty much come to an end,” said Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. “It just becomes too much hassle.”

"Clearly goods imported from Asia and re-distributed to the EU are not from the UK - they are from China or Bangladesh or wherever.Goods will be now be subject to a tariff when entering the UK and then again when entering the EU," explains Sam Lowe from the Centre for European Reform.

“There is a healthy scepticism towards using the German Bundeswehr for tasks that police could do, though under [the current German defence minister] Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and [the former German defence minister] Ursula von der Leyen before her, there have been attempts to rehabilitate the standing of the army in society,” Sophia Besch, a defence fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, told me.

Sam Lowe, of the Centre for European Reform, warned of a difficult task ahead for the UK to achieve its aims, now it was “a third country”.
“It's not very nice negotiating with the EU from the outside, even if you're nearby – just look at Switzerland, just look at Turkey's experience.
“It's going to be rough for the UK in terms of its relationship with the EU, although I do agree with Catherine that it will evolve over time as it should.”

Ms Jerzewska said that Brussels could address the problem by issuing a derogation, or waiver, a view supported by Sam Lowe, trade specialist at the Centre for European Reform think-tank. “If the EU wants to resolve the issue, it could do so pretty easily with an extra clarification,” he said.