The European Commission’s chief Brexit negotiator Barnier recently stated that the ‘Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement’ (CETA) between the EU and Canada is the only feasible model left for Brexit. If this is so, it is bad news. Inevitably, a CETA-Brexit will be much closer to a hard Brexit than to the glorious bespoken deal promised by May.This contribution first sets out the problems a CETA-Brexit is supposed to fix, and then outlines several legal reasons why CETA cannot do so.The progression of EU law: Accommodating change and upholding value