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Alex Andreou @sturdyAlex
, 3 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
Symptomatic that after 40yrs Brits still DO NOT GET how EU works. It’s a rules-based legal body. It’s future relationship with a departing member will not be resolved over coffee and pastries. It needs detailed written proposals that resolve legal issues.

theguardian.com/politics/2018/…
Really, all this was set up by the first meeting between the EU delegation and the EU and Brexiters’ reaction to it. I said then how this would all play out. I wish I had been wrong.

It’s a sad state of affairs to be living in a country whose future now depends on someone from the opposite side of the negotiations being the “adult in the room” in order to save us from our own stupidity and incompetence.
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Strip away noise. This is what happened: Commons gave gov’t 18 of 24 months to get deal; then 3 months to present it. Gov’t overreached and stole another month, leaving only 2. Commons refused to reward this bad faith by giving the gov’t a TWENTY-THIRD month for its blackmail.
Bercow didn’t do this and didn’t say this. Parliament did. The Speaker merely facilitated a democratic vote for the House to express its sovereign will. The bad faith is all on the gov’t side. #BercowWasRight
The real disgrace is that we have a PM and an executive (one that failed to even secure a majority at the last election, no less), so autocratic and with such profound contempt for the legislature, it has reduced the Commons to such creative solutions in order to be heard.
Read 3 tweets
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The toxic effect of an immigration salary threshold is that it equates “value” to a society to “making money”; it lures us into accepting that anyone making less than £30k is a drain, even though that includes the vast majority of us. It’s a national statement of self-disrespect.
By saying “oh, this doesn’t apply to you; it applies to THEM”, it stratifies an entire society, including the people endorsing such a philosophy, in a way that entrenches the notion a sportsman or a hedge fund manager are of more value to society than a teacher or a nurse.
And is doubly bitter for coming from someone whose migrant bus driver father would be considered valueless and undesirable under the criteria conceived by his own son. Although, I’m sure, even @sajidjavid finds ways to intellectualise why it somehow doesn’t mean that.
Read 3 tweets
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THREAD: 1. The whole May vote delay has a whiff of theatre to it which makes this imposed four-weeks before voting the cliffhanger mid-season break. Everything feels meticulously staged. My sense is a backstop time limit is already agreed; this panto is to give May momentum.
2. We saw a dry run of this before. Just like a few well-placed leaks in 2017 that “the EU is demanding £100bn as settlement” when all previous estimates had been around the £40bn that we eventually agreed to. The £100bn rumour was floated purely to give May a perceived victory.
3. Had she come to the House with £39bn to start with, it would have been shouted down. But against a fictional £100bn she can claim to have battled the EU and prevailed (and, indeed, repeatedly has made that claim precisely). And so it may be with her final deal.
Read 8 tweets

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1/ The withdrawal agreement text. Comments coming soon
2/ Legal effect of the withdrawal agreement

Now expressly mentions direct effect and implictly supremacy of EU law.

Note impact of post Brexit CJEU case law is more limited.

Applies to the whole WA; UK had previously agreed to apply this clause to citizens rights parts only
3/ Transition period clauses the same as agreed in March at first glance EXCEPT for a new clause on extension to an unspecified date.

Note usual EU budget contribution for UK would NOT apply during extension. 2.b specifically means abolition of the UK rebate would be irrelevant.
Read 19 tweets
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Take a step back, British diplomacy is not entirely failing here. It appears the UK is close to winning *legal* guarantees (i.e. in the withdrawal agreement — an international treaty) for two things which ensure the backstop is never used en route to the future relationship 1/6
1) A commitment to a "temporary" customs arrangement that is a looser form of customs union than currently exists. The UK will have a clause guaranteeing the EU will negotiate this, without the details of what it entails (it's an EU cheque from written out for jam tomorrow) 2/6
2) If the temporary customs arrangement is not ready in time for the end of the transition period on December 31, 2020, the U.K. can pull a trigger to extend the transition period for up to another year. (There may need to be a trigger to do this again) 3/6
Read 6 tweets
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EU diplomats shrug at what they view as U.K. hysteria over Canada+ or Chequers #Brexit debate. The EU says the choice was never the UK’s alone 1
EU viewsChequers as a U.K. government position. Not an end in itself. Brussels aim: to navigate between Chequers and EU red lines.. 2
Accusation I often hear in Brussels is that U.K. Brexit negotiators are fine wordsmiths but that there’s often little meaning behind the words 3
Read 19 tweets
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The Chequers plan is dying. May faces rebellion on both sides. She can survive, but not proceed. So what happens next? Some thoughts after chats with both sides.

(Shorter: it's still all about the Irish backstop)

1/Thread
As talks get under way in Brussels today, the EU can:

a) attack - eviscerate Chequers for cherry picking

b) parry - play for time, probe UK real red lines

c) focus on what is deliverable to conclude Withdrawal Agreement in Autumn /2

More here: telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…
It is the last of these where smart money lies. Chequers is dying anyway and is a 'future relationship issue'.

The focus is delivering a divorce treaty by 29.03.19 and for this most of work is done.

Except the backstop.... /3
Read 18 tweets
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"Trump has used Harley-Davidson as an example of a US business that is being harmed by trade barriers. Yet Harley has warned consistently against tariffs, saying they would negatively impact sales"

Harley, hit by tariffs, shifts some production overseas apnews.com/6c8942f7363743…
Important issue highlighted by @riotwomennn: are tariff exemptions determined by bribes?

Corker: "22,000 companies have asked for exemptions.There is no basis to deal with them. Are they going to grant these exclusions based on political contributions?"
Trump’s trade war with the European Union is going to cost Harley-Davidson as much as $100 million a year and force the manufacturer to shift production out of the U.S. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Read 232 tweets
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Critically ill Russian national is 66yo Sergei Skripal, former intel colonel/double agent granted refuge in UK after a 2010 "spy swap" between US & Russia. He and a woman were apparently poisoned in/near Salisbury shopping center. bbc.in/2D2oj7X
Ex-Russian spy & daughter 'poisoned' in UK sparks fears of another Kremlin-backed hit. Investigators scrambling to identify the chemical used. Skripal feared for his life after his wife died in a car crash & his son was killed in a road incident.. thesun.co.uk/news/5733372/s…
UK warns Kremlin over poisoning of ex-spy Skripal & his daughter. Recalling Litvinenko murder, FM Johnson said UK was "in the lead across the world" in trying to counteract a "host of malign activity" by Russia.

Skripal's brother, son & wife have been killed in the last 2 year.
Read 76 tweets

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