Quote Originally Posted by OchPie View Post
I think it is a canard to suggest they are different things. The alignment of rules that the common market can need is not a bright line but a continuum, and the vast majority of things covered by the political union were precisely to make the market more common. Brexit (and especially NI) really made it stark what that trade-off looked like - and it amazed me how many Brexity talking heads still don't understand that, talking about things like "regulatory equivalence" as if that would be in any way attractive to the EU.

There's never been a question of the EU actually becoming a superstate - some did want it, but far from enough for it to have ever been viable. So political union becomes a participatory exercise of the countries within, rather than a layer of its own bureaucracy disconnected from that (even if the Commission sometimes push the boundaries).
If you think the current EU is not akin to a political union but is an unfounded rumour we will have to disagree.