Thread by @EmporersNewC

1. OK let’s talk defence, and one of the biggest issues in defence: Finance.

2. Kirkpatrick and Pugh’s estimate isn’t as steep as they suggested, and it gets revised, but it still a very real international issue, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find it close to home.

3. The advantage of being in an international organisation devoted to find solutions together is the countries can start exploring new ideas, like the EU defence fund.

4. The US has a similar system and looking at the weaknesses there suggests why the fund has been created this way.

5. Defence funding is an international issue, and will continue to get worse. Statements like "We can do our own" should be weighed against the fact we already are struggling with our defence budget.

theguardian.com/politics/2018/…

6. And since the fund is there to help break down national protections to create a Single Market in defence, it should be no surprise that a country opting out of the Single Market will be treated as every other 3rd country.

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…

7. The fact is that the EU wasn't stopping us looking for solutions to defence spending before we left, so there is no magic Brexit solution.

8. Instead there is just one less option on the table.

9. I think Harold Macmillan said it best at DePauw University, Indiana, when he declared that there can never have been a time in our history when it has been so true where all forms, material forms, of progress have advanced with such startling and breath-taking rapidity.

10. Before going on to ask:

Are we sure we have made sufficient adaptations on our outlook on political and economic questions to keep pace. In a word, are the statesmen running behind the scientist?

11. While our neighbours are prepared to evolve their politics to meet the challenges of an ever changing world, Britain has decided that it is unwilling.

12. Refusing to evolve, inevitably, comes at a cost, and the UK needs to be prepared to accept just what that price will be.

/End