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16 tweets,
4 min read
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Let's just review the "brainwave" model of Brexit:
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At numerous points in the process, there has been a strong element of "there's probably a very clever solution to all this: we just need to think of it"
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A quick trawl from my tweets pulls up this from last month, when MPs were trying to work out what to do with the Meaningful Vote result
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This from November last year, when there were the last talks on the Withdrawal Agt
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This from May last year in the throws of all that customs malarkey
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This from Sept 2016, when May was trying to work out how to handle getting to notification
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Clearly I have a thing about this trope, but it does seem to explain rather a lot.
The notion that there's some bright spark, stuck in an office somewhere, who has a flash of inspiration, dashes into a meeting waving a piece of paper
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The notion that there's some bright spark, stuck in an office somewhere, who has a flash of inspiration, dashes into a meeting waving a piece of paper
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Of course, it doesn't actually work like that IRL
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The AAWG (to pick a non-random example) is currently looking at options on the backstop, to pin down those elusive alternatives
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This is the same backstop that the UK, Commission, Irish gvt, countless other interested parties and the public have picked over for well over 2 years
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The same border issue that @WeyandSabine talked about last week, where a group of technical experts looked at every option out there right now
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This isn't bleeding-edge science, where the possibility of completely shaking up the basic assumptions is possible
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It's politics, law and economics, where all the tools and options are known
So you're not going to get the kind of opportunities for recasting things you could have elsewhere
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So you're not going to get the kind of opportunities for recasting things you could have elsewhere
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All of which to say is that what's out is what there is.
There isn't a solution to be pulled from thin air/the tree above you
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There isn't a solution to be pulled from thin air/the tree above you
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All of which comes back to a basic and fundamental feature of Brexit: there are no cost-free options.
Whatever you do, you pay a price (politically, economically or reputational)
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Whatever you do, you pay a price (politically, economically or reputational)
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With that in mind, the real question is not "how do I get away from the costs?" but "which costs am I willing to carry?"
And yes, that will be unpleasant
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And yes, that will be unpleasant
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