Thread by @ukiswitheu

Richard Drax MP: Are we getting any bilateral agreements with individual EU states?

Lord Frost: Some states might want to do them, but the EU doesn't allow it

Drax: I think you're hinting they cannot

Frost: Yes, but we can always hope the EU will change

#BrexitReality

..Have you examined where bilateralism is still allowed even though EU countries are within treaties which don't allow them as much latitude?

..Member states can do things with third countries on their own

#BrexitReality

..When you are a member of the EU and a big member state, people have to deal with you because you can influence things

..When you're outside, it's different, you've got to have good arguments, you have to be persuasive, you've got to present things as win-win

#BrexitReality

..When the EU creates a rule, third countries have to accept it

..Shellfish is one example, I hope when they miss our shellfish things might change

..But we've left, they can do as they wish, and we have to accept the consequences

#BrexitReality

..Cheese exports to Egypt have gone up by 240%, there's a tremendous opportunity there

..Obviously, British companies have been exporting to countries outside the EU for a long time

#BrexitReality

Frost: I like to think that if we were to take measures of any kind that support the GFA that the EU wouldn't make that more difficult by reacting to it

#BrexitReality

Frost negotiated and signed the NI protocol which UK wants to change unilaterally without the EU, good faith?

Frost: We have consistently said that we would like to do something like that with the EU, but they have not wished to do so

#BrexitReality

Frosts admits that the UK does not have all the cards, we haven't taken back control, and we are subject to the strength of the EU

Frost: One of the advantages of brexit is to do things differently, I don't think we should accept we are in the EU's regulatory orbit

David Jones: How can we do things differently, when NI is subject to EU regulation?

Frost: Hmm, well, umm

#BrexitReality

..We have seen what can be done when you have flexibility

..We can do things like make clinical trials quicker

#BrexitReality

F*ck me! Tories want to speed up clinical trials which by their nature take time to do properly. If the pandemic doesn't kill us, unsafe drugs will

Frost admits the UK gov does not know what the benefits of brexit are

They are setting up a committee and hiring an external adviser to help find the benefits of brexit

And the benefits will take 'time to show'

#BrexitReality

Destroying people's lives is a Tory game!

Frost says our UK systems operate within EU law which is a bad way of doing things

Frost then says we should normalise the EU law that has come on our statue books

#BrexitReality

If EU law is so bad why are we normalising it and putting it into UK law?

Cash: How can we make sure our standards are world beating, and not just EU standards?

Frost: There's an assumption that only three standards matter, Americans, European and Chinese. It's an oversimplification, UK has some of the best standards in the world

#BrexitBritain

Frost: Brexit is a huge opportunity for the whole country and the whole government to identify opportunities and to move them forward

#BrexitReality

Frost explains that the opportunity for brexit is the opportunity to find new opportunities

Frost: On the question of how we police the border with NI, they are UK officials applying EU law

#BrexitReality

Frost explains how the Uk has taken back control by making UK official apply EU law on the border with NI

..Am I right that the UK's MHRA is the regulatory authority for NI, but it will have to regulate in accordance with EU rules?

..Yes

#BrexitReality

Take back control they said
Get rid of red tape they said