Thread by @BrigidLaffan

Now that peak Brexit approaches & London has ratcheted up blame game, let’s review how UK has handled Brexit. Brexit negs will be used as a case study. UK political elite especially those in power will be judged to have made an appalling mess of same @BrigidLaffan

1. No attempt was made to find a domestic accommodation following a narrow Leave win given the scale of what Brexit implied. @BrigidLaffan

2. PM opted by October 2016 for a hard Brexit & by January Lancaster had boxed herself in by setting out incompatible preferences-@rdanielkelemen trilemma. @BrigidLaffan

3. PM triggered Art50 without knowing what the U.K. Gov wanted & tried to conduct the negotiations in a secret manner so has to keep her cabinet intact. @BrigidLaffan

4. #HMG began negs without knowing the difference between opt-outs in the EU & opt-outs as a third country. Neither did the political class understand the EU & its core dynamics. @BrigidLaffan

5. #HMG failed to understand the power dynamics & the harsh reality of weakened power. From June 24th 2016, UK was a third country in the making. @BrigidLaffan

6. At no stage was there an attempt to engage in domestic deliberation on costs, consequence & choices that have to be made in all economic negs. Society was told that Brexit was cost free & risk free. @BrigidLaffan

7. Much of @Conservatives party reliant on @DUPleader failed to grasp the challenges posed by the border & determination of Dublin & Irish society more generally not to lose recent gains. @BrigidLaffan

8. London because of the nature of its EU membership failed to grasp that the EU had been hardened through crises & both understood its strategic interests & had developed its capacity. @BrigidLaffan

9. The what is Brexit has haunted U.K. strategy. Brexit could be a reality by now if Brexiteer ultras did not want a clean, the hardest of hard Brexits. @BrigidLaffan

10. @BorisJohnson arrives in power & the cycle begins again but by now the degree of radicalisation has heightened making a no deal disorderly Brexit the most likely outcome. @BrigidLaffan

11. Brexit has morphed from a political crisis into a state crisis as Brexit appears to have overwhelmed U.K. state capacity & the future of the state is more uncertain than at any time over the last century. @BrigidLaffan

12. Cardinal sin in this saga was the abject failure to reach a domestic accommodation after ref. There was a Brexit accommodation available but political class was not up to it. The rest of Europe, particularly the island of Ireland, is simply collateral damage. @BrigidLaffan

13. So U.K. media & HMG please stop framing this as an Irish problem. The historical reflex to make Ireland the problem is far too prevalent. A marked feature of Brexit saga is a failure to take ownership by Leavers. @BrigidLaffan