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Tom McTague Profile picture
@TomMcTague
Jul 25, 2019 • 3 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
We're heading for rupture, but then what? EU preconditions to start FTA talks absolutely key. Quicker FTA talks begin, the less problems there are re Irish border. Is this the Cummings plan? Clear political blockage by no-deal then offer £££ for FTA talks (and Gatt24 blah deal)?
EU's post no-deal position, as far as I understand (@BrunoBrussels @alexebarker, @CharlieCooper8, @JamesCrisp6 etc will know more), not yet formally set out. Do they refuse talks until full backstop terms agreed or move to limit damage quickly with more limited pre-conditions?
And if the pre-conditions for UK-EU FTA negotiations post no-deal are more limited than full backstop, then isn't everyone about to endure a load of pain (UK most, obvs) only to get back to the place Boris is demanding now?

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More from @TomMcTague

Tom McTague Profile picture
Nov 9, 2021
Two important pieces have recently been published on NI that shed more light on both the UK's catastrophic failure and, in my view, the cost of the EU's partial interpretation of the GFA. The first is by Policy Exchange and 2nd by IRE's former perm rep to EU. Some thoughts 1/17
Roderick Crawford's account for Policy Ex is devastating for both HMG and Theresa May. He shares a lot of my plague-on-both-your-houses analysis. The current crisis in NI is the consequence of British weakness/failure and EU strength/irresponsibility
policyexchange.org.uk/publication/th…
2/17
The root of the current difficulty in NI (beside Brexit) is the EU/IRE pushed an unbalanced interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement which the UK eventually signed up to even though it disagreed. This was then locked in with the Dec 2017 joint report. Often overlooked 3/17
Read 17 tweets
Tom McTague Profile picture
Jun 7, 2021
NEW: I’ve spent the last few months in and out of No.10 speaking to the PM and his team, trying to get a grip on who he is and what he’s trying to do for this month’s @TheAtlantic cover. Read my profile of this most elusive and formidable storytellers👇1/ theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
I interviewed him multiple times, as well as his most senior advisers, travelling with him to Belfast, Wolverhampton, Hartlepool and Sedgefield. We talked Le Carré and mortality, Horace and history, Christianity and Trump, Brexit and the future of Britain. What did I find?... 2/
His mission, he says, is to restore Britain’s faith in itself, to battle the “effete and desiccated and hopeless” defeatism that defined the Britain of his childhood—and, he believes, the Britain of 2016-19 3/
Read 10 tweets
Tom McTague Profile picture
Dec 16, 2019
In one election Boris Johnson has been transformed; from celebrity chancer to the most dominant politician since Tony Blair. But who is he? What drives him? How does he govern? And what lies behind his appeal? Over the last six months I’ve tried to answer these questions 1/8
First, the man. Here is somebody everyone knows but few *know*, a celebrity and a loner whose character was forged in adolescent tragedy. I profiled the man—and the mask—in July as he fulfilled his lifelong dream to be PM 2/8 theatlantic.com/international/…
Second, the politician. Perennially underestimated, dismissed as unfit for high office, how does he keep stumbling up hill, becoming more powerful each time? Turns out he’s good at politics. In Oct I asked if he was winning. Seems he was (for now) 3/8 theatlantic.com/international/…
Read 8 tweets
Tom McTague Profile picture
Dec 9, 2019
I travelled to Northern Ireland to ask the most fundamental question of this election that few are taking seriously: Will a Tory victory, and the subsequent imposition of Boris Johnson’s deal, lead to unionist disillusionment—or something more sinister? theatlantic.com/international/…
“The unionist cause is not about customs-clearance forms but in the harder-to-define concepts of identity and belonging. It is tied up in history and inheritance, identity and nation, great-grandfathers killed for king and country at the Somme and fathers killed by the IRA...”
“The unionist cause is tied up in the sense that what is being threatened is about more than which flag flies over Belfast City Hall, but a way of life, a culture and country that someone wants to take from you without your permission.”
Read 7 tweets
Tom McTague Profile picture
Nov 27, 2019
The key to understanding Corbyn is moral absolutism. Remember, it’s part of his appeal: he’s unchanging, incorruptible (which = trust). But it explains why he will not take easy political decisions, like apologising. It’s because he doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong 1/5
I once asked a very close ally the difference between Corbyn and McDonnell. The answer: John is more ideological, but more flexible. Jeremy is less ideological, but more rigid. This, I think, is the absolute, irreducible core of Corbyn 2/5
Corbyn did not, as I understand it, get caught up in the internecine Marxist struggles of the 1970s (stalinists, trots etc). He cared less about Marxist purism. It was *ethical* purism which drove him. “He’s an ethical socialist,” one close ally told me 3/5
Read 5 tweets
Tom McTague Profile picture
Oct 22, 2019
This has long been the obvious consequence of a deal universally opposed by unionism. Power sharing, a core plank of the Good Friday Agreement, may be the victim of a settlement to protect the Good Friday Agreement 1/4
So what can be done? There aren’t many avenues left, is the honest answer. But there’s one, perhaps: Within the WA there remains a clause that if joint consent cannot be achieved for the new system, then there’s an obligation to work toward something that can 2/4
What could this look like? Well, this is where *alternative arrangements* rears its head again. There’s a view that unionism will refuse to power share until Dublin seriously entertains alternative arrangements superseding the Irish Sea border 3/4
Read 4 tweets

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