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Peter Foster Profile picture
@pmdfoster
Aug 2, 2019 • 5 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
In case anyone cares, most serious analysis of Freeports doesn’t suggest they’re worth it.

See this from Sussex Uni trade group @uk_tpo

blogs.sussex.ac.uk/uktpo/tag/free… 1/
They tend to displace rather than create jobs. Investment is also, when looking at them historically, inefficient.

But perhaps more importantly the EU is clear they are a fraud and smuggling risk.

ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf… /2
The EU hates them? I can hear the Brexiteers cheering...but not so fast /3

ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf…
If your “plan” is to get a barebones FTA after a no deal #Brexit it might not be smart to advertise your plan to create regulatory risk.

Coz EU does care about level playing-field...and will dig in on a soft/managed “no deal” if U.K. signalling like this. /4
So it’s sort of good if witless propaganda on the @10DowningStreet Twitter feed...but you guessed it. They got Twitter in Brussels too. And I’m already hearing the LPF grumbles.

As always #Brexit is about choices. Sorry to bang on as ever. ENDS.

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More from @pmdfoster

Peter Foster Profile picture
Aug 1
NEW: Brussels issues UK list of “good faith” tests to fully implement EU-UK #Brexit divorce deal if it wants deeper relationship — not a bust up, but a clear reminder this won’t be easy. My and my esteemed Brussels colleague @AndyBounds via @ft /1

on.ft.com/3SsDC3y
The gripes are about fully implementing Windsor Framework — the deal that removed appearance of Irish Sea border — but still needs vet checks, parcel data, pet microchip checks, accurate certification of agrifoods. Which EU says isn’t fully happening. /2
Also some concerns still about treatment of EU citizens under the post Brexit settled
status scheme.

The UK Government says it’s fully committed to getting all this fixed. What’s interstate is EU Commission to make the point it needs doing — at first meeting. /3
Read 10 tweets
Peter Foster Profile picture
Jun 18
A quick (I promise) thread on @RachelReevesMP promises to boost EU-UK trade by aligning on regs (eg chemicals), doing a veterinary deal (no SPS checks) and boosting services via 'mutual recognition of professional qualifications' - taking each in order /1
First alignment. Two points:
1. via @joelreland of @UKandEU 'alignment doesn't get you access'.

See his new report here, setting out why technical agreements to improve EU-UK trade will have 'minimal' impact on economy /2

ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/upl…
Image
@joelreland @UKandEU 2. Not ALL industry want full-fat unilateral alignment. Even the food industry, you hear different voices (what about x, y, z pesticide use to grow barley/beets etc) OR in chemicals, see Chemical Industries Association @See_Chem_Bus to me here🚨🚨/3 Image
Read 11 tweets
Peter Foster Profile picture
Jan 27
NEW: Gove’s top-down plan to build 150,000 houses in Cambridge by 2040 declared “nonsensical” by local council leaders because they don’t have water supply to build existing plan for 50,000 by that date! 🤯 But Gove keeps giving interviews promising it/1

ft.com/content/d1c0bf…
“The 150,000 homes would appear to just be nonsensical, if I’m honest, because the infrastructure just isn’t there,” Mike Davey, @mikelode1 Labour leader of Cambridge City Council /2
@mikelode1 “We are a pro-growth council, but we’ve run out of water. So that leaves us with a lot of questions about how this can be delivered. Gove has to solve the water problem and the energy problem or it can’t be done,” Bridget Smith, LD leader of South Cambridgeshire @cllrbridget /3
Read 8 tweets
Peter Foster Profile picture
Sep 19, 2023
David Frosts column on #Brexit this morning goes in three phases:

- gaslighting readers over his “thin” deal being actually fat 🙄

- some actual truth on UK as rule taker

- and then total failure to admit he’s responsible for this mess 🧵1/4

telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/1…
First the gaslighting: his deal is a ‘reverse’ trade deal…it erects barriers, it doesn’t remove them. It’s only “broadest deal ever” if UK started from zero relations, rather than working down from Single Market membership. As he well knows, but I wonder about the readers.😬 /2 Image
Second the one bit of truth. To get closer to EU and fix bits of his rubbish deal, the UK will become a big rule taker. That will be hard. What Frost omits to say is that’s a pure function of the hideous position his #Brexit deal has put the UK in. And no seat at the table. /3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Peter Foster Profile picture
Jul 18, 2023
🚨🚨when ministers aren’t bashing UK universities they love to boast about them. Rightly. But unless something changes on funding there will be a lot less to boast about in 10 years time. /1

Here’s why via @ft Big Read…

on.ft.com/3rtAhGF
As Simon Marginson Higher Education prof at Oxford University explains the UK is in danger of getting back to the funding crisis levels that sparked need for tuition fees…/2 Image
These charts by @amy_borrett explain the basic problem. Triple whammy of inflation, #Brexit and risky over reliance on international students to x-subsidise undergrad teaching (previously used to make up research grant shortfalls). /3


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Read 8 tweets
Peter Foster Profile picture
Jun 29, 2023
Went to the Midlands to talk to UK manufacturers about slow #Brexit strangle. @MakeUK_ CEO Stephen Phipson summed up the challenge:

"The question we must ask is, ‘would Airbus make all their wings in the UK, if they were making that decision now’?” /1

https://t.co/YwerpUopHKft.com/content/2f99a9…


What he's getting at is that #Brexit is not, as is still widely supposed, a one-off event that companies adjust to.

It's a permanent friction that makes UK companies a risker bet for your supply chain than an EU company. And that matters for maufacturing/2
That's because 50 per cent of UK exports are from manufacturing, and of those that go to EU, around 50 per cent feed into EU supply chains -- so they make bits of things that criss-cross Europe to become whole things that then get exported to rest of world. /3
Read 12 tweets

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