Peter Foster Profile picture
Aug 6, 2019 13 tweets 11 min read Read on X
We are in a tedious game of #Brexit 'he said, she said' now.

@michaelgove is professing upset that the EU will not negotiate.

The @EU_Commission says it is happy to talk any time.

But both on their own terms 1/
@michaelgove @EU_Commission The UK wants to strain every sinew to get a deal, but only if the EU agrees to 'bin the backstop'

The EU wants a deal too, but only if the UK accepts needs for a coherent solution to Irish border, and a backstop til then. /2
@michaelgove @EU_Commission Neither side is being especially sincere at the moment.

The @BorisJohnson government has taken a deliberate decision NOT to engage the EU on anything close to what might be a negotiable deal. Overtures were made. They were rebuffed in favour of 'bin the backstop' /3
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson So a bit rich for @michaelgove to be weeping crocodile tears over the EU "intransigence".

If you were cynical, you might think that this is just blame-game strategy.

Gove needs to be SEEN to be trying. There is not actual intent on a deal /4
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson But equally, you could argue the EU asked for this by consistently refusing to re-open the Withdrawal Agreement - when everyone suspects, push come to shove, 1 minute to midnight - that the EU *would* move on, say time-limiting the Irish backstop, IF it delivered a deal/5
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson The question now is if that deal space is remotely accessible.

And if it was, would it go through Parliament.

Could the ERG 'spartans' say 'no' if a Boris cabinet backed it at 11th hour? /6
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson Or is all that - as I'm widely counselled by insiders on both sides - an academic question now, if all possible/relevant concessions are pre-determined insufficient?

Is the real question, given Johnson govt intent to go headlong to a 'no deal', whether Parliament can stop him?/7
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson Lots of fighting talk from No 10, but @BorisJohnson leads a minorty govt with a majority of one....against a Parliament with clear majority against a 'no deal'. Not saying it's easy, but the odds & the constitutional conventions must point to Parliament winning out. /8
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson But to answer these questions, we seem to have reached yet another Brexit 'phoney war'; lots of bravado but not so clear how everyone behaves when the hot metal is flying - currency markets & supermarkets in October panic. /9
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson For now, it is just willy-waving and blame-gaming.

No serious or detailed preparations for a new negotiation.

There had been some talk that at this stage we'd be busy renegotiation the Political Declaration to rule out a Customs Union. Not happened. /10
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson The issue now is that for talks to start, both sides will need to climb down.

Johnson from his 'bin the backstop' position.

The EU from it's no re-opening the Withdrawal Agreement. /11
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson Not immediately clear to me what the mechanism for that happening is.

Since Johnson Govt isn't apparently daring to test in Parliament what might move the deal.

And without that, why would the EU get off their sunloungers? /12
@michaelgove @EU_Commission @BorisJohnson It's still early days, of course, but all signs point to more stand-off to come, and a ferociously bumpy autumn.

I am shortly about to take my own advice: take a holiday while you can. /13ENDS

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More from @pmdfoster

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
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
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
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
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
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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