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Alexander Clarkson
@APHClarkson
, 3 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
You can't separate economic policy and regulatory dominance from security and defence policy. Sustaining stability and dominance of the Single Market requires security and military tools internally or beyond the borders. Regulatory dominance requires law enforcement mechanisms
One of the biggest and most persistent analytical errors in debates about geopolitics are these attempts to cleanly separate between the economic, cultural, political and military.

All four factors are deeply intertwined with one another.
That's why the strenuous effort to protect and project the integrity and hegemony of the Single Market is inexorably leading to increasingly powerful internal EU security and law enforcement tools like the EPPO as well as an increasing (para)militarisation of the EU border regime
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Alexander Clarkson
@APHClarkson
The risk for the EU has always been UK state paralysis and vicious political fragmentation making it structurally unable to take any coherent action as a result of No Deal rather than any great moment of British assertiveness
The EU has to weigh up how it avoids having blame shifted on it for the implosion of the UK state system
What makes the impact of No Deal on British everyday life so unpredictable is we do not know how far the lower frontline end of the UK civil service, NHS and police can function autonomously on their own initiative if the ability of the senior civil service to act collapses
Read 5 tweets
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Alexander Clarkson
@APHClarkson
There is no robust evidence showing that the UK has been able to exert any effective influence over MBS and MBZ when it comes to war in Yemen, Libya or Syria as well as repression in the Gulf, Egypt or Sudan
If the UK wants to sustain the military industries needed to sustain its own defence structure and hopefully make a serious constructive contribution to collective European security then it needs to be able to pay for it without what is in effect a Saudi and UAE subsidy
Same goes for France, Belgium, Italy (in relation to Qatar), Spain and Ukraine
Read 3 tweets
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Alexander Clarkson
@APHClarkson
Another few years of this and the Americans may end up with the shock of Europeans saying "fine, just sod off then". US military presence is very useful, but the EU and its member states will survive without it.
The heavy US military role has ensured US influence over Europe's political and strategic development. Withdrawing in a snit over China increases the likelihood that an EU thrown on its own vast resources becomes a strategic rival rather than a partner of the US.
There is no EU state that wants a strategic rift with the US. It is easier and cheaper to rely on US military infrastructure. But after damage of the 00s, US political instability and the distrust Trump is fuelling is prodding the Europeans in directions the US may come to regret
Read 3 tweets

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Ian Dunt
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If there was a snap election, what would be the Tory Brexit policy? May's deal? No deal? Whatever it was, loads of their MPs would not follow it.
Labour's Brexit policy would be an imaginary and unspecified single market relationship, alongside an imaginary customs union relationship which includes voting rights on trade deals.
I can see why an election is attractive on principle: it could change the numbers and unlock a majority for something. But with the policies where they are, this simply doesn't function.
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For those who have not read @atiku's interview with @AfricanReport, here's a synopsis. The talking points. Find the link to the full interview on his twitter handle. THREAD.

PS: My views are infused but are glaring though wherever they appear.
He's introduced as boisterous, full of life, not shy to speak about his vision and plans. He's not the campaign promise-esque politician, he talks policies. He is interested in systems (deregul­ation and privatisation) and structure (restructuring). Buhari is bland. Lacklustre!
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001/ [article content in this tweet series 001-180 reproduced with permission from Martin Howe QC of Lawyers for Britain @lawyers4britain]
#quote "Leaving the EU on WTO terms: pulling down the barriers to world trade
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Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke
@kevinhorourke
@pmdfoster @CER_Grant @CER_EU @anandMenon1 @DenisMacShane This is indeed what it would take for the thing to work. But if all sides agreed, which remains to be seen, it would solve the Irish border issue, rescue UK supply chains, & allow HMG to restrict free movement. It would have a lot going for it.
@pmdfoster @CER_Grant @CER_EU @anandMenon1 @DenisMacShane It would also involve a huge climbdown by the EU side. The very first statement by the 27, on 29 June 2016, stated that "Access to the Single Market requires acceptance of all four freedoms." According to @tconnellyRTE that was inserted at the insistence of Mrs Merkel.
@pmdfoster @CER_Grant @CER_EU @anandMenon1 @DenisMacShane @tconnellyRTE So while it would require the jettisoning of Mrs May's red lines there'd be a parity of political pain, since a pretty fundamental EU red line would also have been breached. I've argued for the outcome in the past but have always doubted whether it was a runner for that reason.
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Michael Seibel
@mwseibel
Instead of this back and forth between liberals and conservatives sometimes I wish we could run the most extreme A/B test for a year (or a decade) and then just ask people which country they liked better....
But we can’t - so in times like these I remember this MLK quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
I really wished there was a way to separate economic policy and social policy in our country. I know a lot people on both sides who simply cannot defend their party’s position on one of these fronts.
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