Thread by @APHClarkson

Just as the UK government never understood that Leo Varadkar could have been its best friend in the EU, it still does not understand how lucky it is that Pedro Sanchez is in power now rather than any of his more nationalist rivals.

Has still made no effort to reach out to Madrid

The self-obsessed inability of Westminster and Whitehall leadership factions to engage with the specific dynamics of the politics of EU states as they are rather than as they would like them to be is becoming a national security risk for the peoples of the UK.

British factions that love to obsess about supposed equals in France or Germany whose outlook they struggle to understand missed all the risk signals coming from Dublin in 2016 and 2017.

They still don't get that Spain under PP or Ciudadanos could cause the UK huge trouble

Pick up the phone. Visit Madrid and Gibraltar. Talk intensively with Spanish analysts, civil servants and politicians. Share ideas. Show some goddamn interest and engagement.

And then do the same with Rome over border management and geographical indicators.

And beyond Spain and Italy, there is zero sign of high level UK politicians and civil service engaging with what East Med tensions between the EU and Turkey might mean for the British position in Cyprus.

When all these issues hit the UK side will be surprised by the predictable

Brexit is not about Brexit anymore.

It hasn't been since 2017.

It is a symptom of a wider internal crisis of the British state fuelled by its structural inability to engage effectively with the wider world as well as regional and national diversity within its own borders