Thread by @lukecooper100

ON DRAFT UK-EU DEAL

Late night for me last night reading the draft deal. Here's a thread starting with the future relationship document, which in someways is the most interesting /1

The future relationship doc is actually a big win for May. Many people will - correctly - point to the fact it's vague, not a legal document, and so on. All of which is true. But it is a political doc the EU can be held to in the future negotiations /2

By pledging to end free movement and using language which *strongly implies* UK will seek some kind of membership of the single market, it promises a 'bespoke deal' and cherry picking of the single market the EU have previously ruled out /3

This matters because the deal won't get through the Commons. So the response in EU capitals will be: "we have once again gone out of our way to satisfy British exceptionalism and we've once again been told we haven't done enough". Ergo a major international crisis lies ahead /4

The Withdrawal Treaty itself is a very different, legalistic document. There is very little in it on the future relationship but it focuses on the transitional period /5

Backing the deal would be a huge step into the dark (eg Article 184 says that the Union and the UK will endeavour, ‘to the extent possible”, that the final agreement will be in place by end of transition). That means we face another 'no deal' cliff edge at the end of transition/6

Importantly, though, this takes place when the UK has lost all of its representation in the European institutions. The UK, in short, will have much less negotiating power during the transition. Strange as it may seem the peak of its negotiating power is now /7

An important one for Labour: EU state aid rules will apply during the transition period. European Commission oversight for any aid begun during transition will continue for four years thereafter /8

This looks like a big loss of sovereignty as the UK will no longer enjoy the influence over Commission decisions it currently has. It could impact a Corbyn govt if they came into power before the end of transitional period and introduced measures EC held contradicted rules /9

Of course, EU state aid rules are nothing like the bogeyman that Labour front bench occasionally imply and in practice UK could go much further than it currently does within the rules. Neither does the LP manifesto breach them. But still... /10

The draft proposes a joint committee between the UK and EU made up of representatives of both and co-chaired by both. It also establishes a baroque system of ‘specialised committees’ /sub-committees in different areas. /11

These basically create framework for permanent Brexit-style negotiations. Despite appearing to be a structure comprised of two equal sides with equal representation they actually disguise the fact that in practice, as these negotiations show, the EU has way more de facto power/12

You get the outline here of what post-Brexit Britain will look like on the international stage. As intergovernmental institutions that appear to offer equality between two organisations (the UK and EU) actually created a system of de facto ‘vassalage’ in UK-EU relations. /13

IRELAND/FUTURE RELATIONSHIP
Most of the Withdrawal Treaty amounts to a signing away of sovereignty without any conceivable benefits or any statement of what the future relationship will look like. But The separate Ireland protocol is more specific... /14

It lays out a series of elements that amount to a UK-wide backstop:
•A commitment to a ‘common customs territory’ for the whole of the UK ‘until the future relationship becomes applicable’ (Article 6).
•This would apply the Common External Tariff on goods /15

•Principle of ‘non-regression’ on environmental regulation.
•Principle of ‘non-regression’ on labour and social standards.
•UK membership of the EU state aid and competition rules.
•Special form of regulatory alignment (buried in very opaque language) for NI /16

This is the part of the doc that the hard Brexiters are going for. Not because they care about NI, but because, in order to solve the Irish question, the UK has been forced to adopt what will likely be a very long-term or permanent customs arrangement with the EU /17

Apart from the non-regression element, Corbyn won’t like it either, because he will have to accept EU state aid rules while losing the representation in the EU structures that a Labour government would need to reform them /18

Finally, on citizen rights there seems to have been a genuine attempt made to secure the rights of EU citizens living in the UK (and vice versa). But the fact is it is practically hard to do this when the UK appears to be moving to end free movement /19

For example:

•EU nationals rights to permanent residency after fives years - only lost if you then leave the country for more than five years.
•The right to family union is also protected - including for partners and family members from outside the EU.
/20

To activate these rights they need to be living in the UK in the transitional period and they will also have to go through a registration process. However, as Windrush demonstrates, having a right to stay in the country is one thing; proving it to the Home Office is another /21

There has been some attempts made by EU negotiators to address this issue by, for example, insisting the form to applying for residence status is short, the procedure quick, identity checks just requiring national ID or passport etc /22

But the end result will entail increased bureaucracy for EU nationals /23

If any EU national is resident in the UK before the end of the transition period they will have to go through an application process to get this recognised /24

Here the de facto committment to end free movement in the declaration on the future relationship should ALARM anyone interested in (a) migrant rights; (b) working in another EU country; (c) protecting the open society /25

THE END.