Thread by @faisalislam

letters appeared on gov.uk late last night:
1. Brexit Sec Barclay says “insufficient time to complete work” to plan no deal mitigations if left till last days of October
2. Asks for Commission to allow bilateral (eg UK-Fr etc) prep
3. Barnier says No - pass WA

Interesting open admission by Govt. on “insufficient time” though not wildly surprising. Having admitted that though, they surely cannot for example change by much the Yellowhammer assumptions on trade flow in time for Oct 31st...

Barnier’s reply: “We will not enter into any negotiations with the United Kingdom on these matters”... ie No Deal mitigations will be unilateral. this is perhaps the point at which “they need us more than we need them” is supposed to kick in.
NB this was sent before ydays talks..

I suppose though, with that reply, the Government implicitly acknowledges there is “insufficient time to complete work” on mitigating no deal, or at least the power to do so lies with the Commission.

Significance of “last days of October” is of course thats earliest time by which Government feels it will have to adopt firm presumption of No Deal. Up until then still officially negotiating deal.

But now admits won’t be enough time at that point to fully mitigate disruption.