Thread by @Usherwood

Brexit and its parts. Some thoughts

1/

Last week, I wrote a bit about how we needed to unpack 'Brexit', in order to create some more manageable elements

https://twitter.com/Usherwood/status/1030380052930809858

2/

After some more discussions with colleagues and practitioners since then, I'm reminded that there's another issue, namely that no-one feels they have a good handle on how this all works

3/

Put differently, there are too many moving parts

4/

Now this is a slightly different point to the one I discussed last time.

That was about the elements within the process that needed an agreement/decision

This is about all the things that could affect those decisions

5/

That includes:
- May and her office
- Cabinet and ministerial decisions
- the actions of political parties
- the economy and individual businesses
- the EU27, collectively and individually
- third states and IOs

6/

- legal constraints, in UK, EU & beyond
- media
- public opinion
- activist groups and individuals

And
- general randomness

7/

In short, everything might matter, but with no consistency about when and how it might matter

8/

This sounds/reads like grumbling, and there's certainly an element of that in this framing, but personally I like the idea that contained w/in all this might be a more general model of 'how it all works'

9/

(and no, I don't know what that model is right now)

10/

However, the point of the thread (tweet 11) is that the pervasiveness of this view is note-worthy in itself, not least because it lends itself to taking a view that we're all helpless in this

I'll argue that's wrong

11/

In much the same way that we need to become much more specific about what element of 'Brexit' we're dealing with, so too do we need to start trying to isolate the various factors and hold some of the pieces still long enough to apply actions

12/

These two things hang together, obviously. By focusing on an element with the Brexit package, some external factors will become less relevant, closing in the circle of analysis and improving the chances of some progress

13/

Lots of small problems are better than a few big problems, if you like, because the former are likely to be more tractable

14/

Of course, none of this aids the challenge of trying to see things in the round, which still matters: without a strategic intent, this atomisation risks producing perverse outcomes

15/

However, such strategising-for-action requires a public debate that simply doesn't exist at this point, leaving only a competition of narratives

https://twitter.com/Usherwood/status/1032180249356918787

16/

So, in short:

Yes, it's horrendously complex.

But no, that shouldn't be a reason to throw your hands up.

/end