[user104658]

I think if you forge trade deals like that it's only a matter of time before you get "culture bleeds", in order to keep up. George Osborne was already talking about "Tiger parenting" and essentially abusing kids into a life of anxiety via endless harsh schooling in order to "keep up with" (miserable, stressed) Chinese students if I remember correctly, long before Brexit.

I agree that free trade and open borders (for residence) shouldn't be so firmly linked but I think it's exceptionally naive to think that we can simply ignore our biggest, closest, most culturally relevant marketplace in favour of other foreign trade and expect it to even compare economically.