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Jonathan Lis @jonlis1
, 3 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Anyone notice this bombshell today? May tells BBC only way of keeping open border on island of Ireland and Irish Sea is Chequers. But it takes two to tango and EU has definitively rejected that.

PM has actually just confirmed that we must have full CU and SM or no Brexit at all
Her red lines are: no new controls on border between NI/Ireland or NI/GB. But EU insists only way of achieving that is by full customs union and a single market in goods- and UK as a whole would also then have to adopt single market in services, capital and people. Fudge is over.
Key recurring theme of Brexit is that the truth doesn’t stop staring us in the face just because May declares it isn’t there.

There is now nowhere left for her to hide and she has lost any power to resolve this chaos. Let the people do it for her.
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Labour Party policy is as follows:

1/ Reject this deal
2/ Try to secure general election
3/ Try to win election
4/ Try to renegotiate Brexit in government
5/ If 2, 3 or 4 doesn’t happen, support a referendum

Renegotiation won’t work, but it is policy. So is a people’s vote.
We can argue about this, but let’s also bear in mind that the government is currently spending billions of pounds preparing for a scenario which will cut off our food and medicine supply.
And, before you say ‘we crash out on 29 March’, Corbyn has explicitly ruled out supporting no-deal under any circumstances and has repeatedly called on May to extend Article 50. He will no-confidence gov before we reach edge of the abyss.
Read 3 tweets
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I know this looks disappointing, but hold tight. Corbyn can hardly promise to ‘stop Brexit’ when he’s already outlined preference for a general election so he can renegotiate it. If there is a GE manifesto with no Plan B for a referendum if he can’t renegotiate, *then* get angry
Because the truth is that he won’t be able to renegotiate much. Backstop has to stay in all circumstances. Customs union must still be worked through in transition period and we’ll never get a veto over our tariffs or EU’s trade policy, but will still have to follow them.
And if he wants to end free movement - a huge error - then that means we leave the single market with massive disruption at Dover and a border in Irish Sea. So realistically best Corbyn can do is to have ‘Norway Plus’ added to political declaration as a negotiating aspiration.
Read 4 tweets
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Corbyn spot on here. May is running down the clock and wasting money on an outcome she knows won’t happen, just to make her deal look like lesser of two evils. She is now driving Project Fear. Even by standards of British politics this is unparalleled cynicism #PMQs
Wow, there really is nothing more cringe-making than watching May bleat out rigidly rehearsed stale jokes. Also, did nobody suggest ‘they’re behind you’ might be an unwise line when 117 of her own MPs just tried to get rid of her? #PMQs
Have to do a double-take when PM answers a question about foreign policy. Seems impossible to remember a time when UK gov took a sustained interest in world affairs and wasn’t exclusively concerned with implementing a navel-gazing orgy of economic ruin and national self-harm
Read 3 tweets

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The draft deal on the Northern Ireland backstop, which was agreed last night by UK and EU officials (as I reported) - but not yet by the UK cabinet and EU 27 governments - would I think be acceptable to the DUP, the NI unionist party that props up May.
It includes a provision to massively increase checks on food and livestock flowing from the GB mainland to NI. But these happen already. Importantly Barnier, for the EU, has “de-dramatised” regulatory checks to the satisfaction of May...
...- by agreeing that there need not be any checks on goods flowing east-west across the Irish Sea to NI outside of the “marketplace”.

Or to put it another way...
Read 13 tweets
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1) Starting a near-midnight thread, basically to help me collect my thoughts on a variety of related topics.
2) I would really prefer to just do research and then go out with that. But oh well
3) When you see all this I think you'll understand why my head is exploding a little. And it's hard to just stay focused on one thing.
Read 79 tweets
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One other point about the Ireland-Ghana tax treaty that Irish parliamentarians are about to debate. Of course it takes two to tango in a treaty - but it's not a level playing field. As capital exporters, developed countries hold more cards to start with. [thread]
Maybe this is why at the Oireachtas Finance Committee last month the minister was at pains to stress that Ghana first requested a tax treaty with Ireland, not vice versa. He said it three times. oireachtas.ie/en/debates/deb…
Trouble is, the Department of Foreign Affairs' own records (released under Freedom of Information) suggest a different story.
Read 13 tweets
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1/ Extreme civilisation, late-stage capitalism, whatever you want to call it: this thread👇🏼 is about THE. LEAST. SUSTAINABLE. THING. EVER! And it’s Irish...

peatbed.com

@creedcnw @OriginGreen @Bordbia @GeorgeMonbiot @IUCNpeat @KOSullivanIT @tessakhan
2/ Yes, it’s Irish peat used as bedding for methane-belching cows & other farm animals!

Why? It’s cheaper than straw because straw prices are👆🏼because, well, climate-induced drought...

@KOSullivanIT @ellamcsweeney @RTENewsPaulC @GeorgeMonbiot @paulbmelia @GeorgeLeeRTE
3/ It costs the Earth 🌏 but Irish peat really is the “lap of luxury” for cows! 🐄

@creedcnw @OriginGreen @Bordbia
Read 18 tweets
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So @MichelBarnier
may have appeared to pull his punches today, but don't be fooled. He stuck firmly to EU guns.

This is a key word "de-dramatise" and you'll hear it a lot more - and it is not good news for Mrs May. Here's why /1
If EU sticks to guns on cherry-picking, then that leaves UK with basic FTA...and that means an Irish sea goods border.

When Barnier says "de-dramatise" he means May and Davis need to give over on their contention that such a border is a threat to UK constitutional integrity /2
So when Barnier uses this word, it's code for "the only compromise we need here is by the UK" on the question of the east-west border that would be thrown up by hiving of Northern Ireland into separate regulatory orbit. Something May has said is "unacceptable". /3
Read 9 tweets
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Can 'technology' or 'maxfac' solve the Irish border question problem?

Boris and Davis say it can.

David Trimble, who signed the Good Friday Agreement says so too.

So does a paper today by @Policy_Exchange

I think that's wrong. Here's why.
1/Thread.

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…
Let's start with that Policy Exchange report, with a forward by David Trimble. You can read it all here:

policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/upl…

It admits defeat almost from the outset, by arguing that UK Govt "conceded too much” last December in the Joint Report. /2
Recall the UKG promise to avoid a hard border “including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls.”

That set's a high bar for MaxFac - so high that Davis and Boris talk about some infrastructure, "set back" from the border. /3
Read 22 tweets

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