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Dmitry Grozoubinski
@DmitryOpines
, 4 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Less than 100 days until Brexit.

The leader of a major UK political party is willfully lying on @LBC's airwaves about the basics of an issue with potentially lethal national security implications.

This should be a bigger scandal.

It's terrifying that it isn't.
@LBC For more information, this is @DavidHenigUK's thread on the border issue.

It's good, read it all.

And here's my very best and most accessible explanation for why this issue is so difficult:

explaintrade.com/blogs/2019/06/…
Another very good explainer thread, this one from @hayward_katy and with a bit more detail about the practicalities of the Backstop:

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More from @DmitryOpines see all

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Dmitry Grozoubinski
@DmitryOpines
(1/3) Just to explain this:

After Brexit, businesses trading with Europe will officially become importers and exporters, which significantly increases their bureacratic burden.

Getting an EORI number is step 1. If you don't have one your stuff can't cross borders.
(2/3) Getting one isn't hard, but the percentage of businesses doing so is still horrifyingly low.

Some businesses groups are calling for the government to automatically issue EORIs to all businesses it knows about.
(3/3) The government has so far refused, because an EORI is just one requirement and a fairly easy one.

It want getting an EORI to be the on-ramp to the process of preparing to trade with Europe, and does not want to give the impression preparing is something it can do for you.
Read 3 tweets
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Dmitry Grozoubinski
@DmitryOpines
John O'Neill is awesome.

My favourite John story was at the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference, when he had to cover for someone in a really complex negotiation.

Australia, Canada, EU et al. were pushing back on a proposed rule change we thought would harm the trading system.
The debate is pretty heated and getting nowhere. Very senior people in the room. Accusations are thrown around, tempers flaring. Everyone is exhausted.

Threats are being made about blocking the entire conference outcome over this issue.

John mostly just sits there listening.
Suddenly John leans forward and in his signature sardonic but ultra calm rumble of a voice:

"You realize of course this entire proposal is based on applying a rule that lapsed years ago?"

Everyone:

"No! What?"
Read 4 tweets
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Dmitry Grozoubinski
@DmitryOpines
(1/4) The problem with the US FTA in the Brexit debate isn't USTR prowess, Trump's mercantalism, a threat to the NHS, chlorinated chicken, digital taxes, or that Pelosi's Congress may block it.

It's the absurd fetishism of its likely impact as some unprecedented game changer.
(2/4) When analysing Brexit HMT assumed (beyond all sane expectations) rapid conclusion of FTAs providing full tariff elimination (again, insane expectation) with not only the US, but 16 other economies.

The result was barely above the margin of error. Total.
(3/4) This isn't a Remainer Cabal within Treasury being negative.

It is entirely in line with what mainstream economists tell us about doing FTAs with distant lands.

Nice, and usually of real benefit to a few sectors, but never game changing for the economy. Ever.
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

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David Henig
@DavidHenigUK
Main reflection on the Panorama Brexit documentary is the extent of the split over the EU within the Conservative Party. And that was even without including any overt referendum supporters. UK integrity and trade v pure sovereignty
The split in the Conservative Party is not about Brexit right or wrong, but a sectarian split about what Brexit really means. Such splits in political parties are often terminal.
Like many I spend time wondering which major UK political party is in a worse state. I currently think Conservative Party, with apparently irreconcilable views, rather than the Labour Party, which only needs to overthrow an abysmal leader and unpleasant coterie around him
Read 3 tweets
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Dr Phillip Lee MP
@DrPhillipLeeMP
On #Brexit, these #EUelections2019 show that, if a political party stands in the middle of the road, it gets squashed. That‘s what I predicted when I resigned from Government last year. And it’s what has happened to @Conservatives and @UKLabour
So what next? If the purpose of government is to follow the will of the people (at any cost), the only politically viable Brexit is a hard one (WTO etc). But neither major political party will get a Westminster majority by delivering Hard Brexit without explicit public consent
And forget any soft Brexit. It’s not politically viable (for the record, I’ve always held that it’s the worst of both worlds) and anyone thinking we get further concessions from the @EU_Commission by playing hardball is living in cuckoo land. The WA is it, take it or leave it
Read 5 tweets
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Peter Foster
@pmdfoster
@MikeAnson @BorderIrish @NickyMorgan01 @GregHands @ManufacturingNI @MichaelAodhan @Freight_NI It's a fair question....arguably too partisan/pejorative....but a Unicorn is a make-believe animal that doesn't exist. I was one of the original users/coiners of the phrase in order to try and make this a fact-based conversation not something based on wishful thinking. 1/
@MikeAnson @BorderIrish @NickyMorgan01 @GregHands @ManufacturingNI @MichaelAodhan @Freight_NI But remember, this is not some new problem.

Before the joint report in Dec 2017 there was a massive scoping exercise involving EU/UK and Irish officials that totally came up against reality on the border question.

I have done multiple threads on this /2
@MikeAnson @BorderIrish @NickyMorgan01 @GregHands @ManufacturingNI @MichaelAodhan @Freight_NI Threads which, based on my visits to NI and interviews with NI businesses and officials in both Whitehall and Brussels who are actively engaged in trying to find solutions, reach the conclusion that there isn't a tech solution to the border. /3
Read 21 tweets
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Simon Brooke 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺
@simon_brooke
Two things that I'm thinking about as very serious issues this weekend:

1. Do you remember how quickly the Soviet Bloc collapsed? We're all thinking about life post-#Brexit as sort of muddling through, business as usual, but I think that's unlikely. >>>
If there's no deal, if the borders clog up - both looking virtually certain just now - there will be a sudden, long lasting, critical shortage of fresh food. Britain isn't used to that. I believe there will be civil disorder. >>>
It means there will be less food in the shops. It means the prices will rise. It means the poor will go without. It means there will be hunger. It means that social inequity will become even more stark. >>>
Read 11 tweets
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Ben Goren
@BanGaoRen
1/ @jk_rowling thank you for sharing Nuddering's thread. I am a British man born in Israel, a child of one English parent and one Israeli. My grandparents migrated to the British Mandate before WWII. My Grandfather lost almost his entire family to the Nazis. Some thoughts:
2/ It's 1995. I'm in the Territorial Army. We have to fill out forms during basic training. It asks where you're born. Word spreads. Later my Corporal makes constant jokes about 'my big nose'. I'm quietly disgusted but not shocked. Racism in the British Army? It's almost SOP.
3/ Fast forward. It's 2006. Israel is at war with Hezbullah in Southern Lebanon. My cousin is killed by an RPG that incinerates his truck. There's a burial with a casket but there's no physical body to bury. Israel is traumatised by the war. Public consensus is that it has lost.
Read 27 tweets
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Lesley Miller
@LesleyMillercyp
#Brexit 1
Cadbury moved factory 2 Poland 2011 with EU grant.
Ford Transit moved 2Turkey 2013 with EU grant.
Jaguar Land Rover recently agreed 2 build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant, owned by Tata, same company who trashed our steel industry & emptied workers pension funds.
#Brexit 2
Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.
British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.
#Brexit 3
Dyson gone 2 Malaysia, with EU loan. Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone 2Poland with EU grant,employed 1,200.
M&S manufacturing gone 2far east with EU loan.
Hornby models gone. In fact all toys & models gone from UK along with patents all with EU grants
Read 28 tweets

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