Thread by @pmdfoster

EXC: So. @PhilipHammondUK has finally said it - the entire 'bucaneering Britain' #Brexit narrative is based on a fallacy.

The much anticipated free trade deals don't outweigh costs of barriers to trade with EU from #Brexit 1/Thread

Full interview:

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

@PhilipHammondUK Think about that for a sec.

The whole row over the backstop and quitting the Customs Union is so we can win the right to make ourselves poorer.

So says the for Chancellor. They have "very limited" economic potential. /2

@PhilipHammondUK As you'd expect from 'Spreadsheet Phil' he's not making it up - he's run the numbers. (See research by LSE, HMT, @jdportes and others).

They are mad:

UPSIDE from FTAs all FTA is less than 0.5% additional GDP by 2030

DOWNSIDE of Canada minus deal? Negative 4-7% 'lost' GDP /3

Those are incredibl numbers.

The #Brexit debate is not 'upside down', it's 'downside up'.

How did 'freedom' get defined as the right to leave a customs union? When did you ever hear anyone say "No freeborn Englishman will ever pay the Common External Tariff! No Sir!" /4

It says a lot about our political discourse - and I'm afraid the failure of the @theresa_may administration to openly confront these facts - that we are now heading to a 'no deal' cliff with a fact-based converation for the basis for Brexit. /5

@theresa_may And @PhilipHammondUK - finally out in the open now - must take his share of responsibility for the miscalculation that dancing round the real numbers in the hope that the #Brexiteers could be coaxed to accept @theresa_may deal was a huge mistake in retrospect. /6

I've tried to set out what happened in this long read for @prospect_clark
@prospect_uk - they bet that the Brexiteers would take a middle-road #Brexit when they had the chance. Wrongly. Now we are yet deeper into the hole. /7

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/peter…

@prospect_clark @prospect_uk Easy to say they should have been bolder - it would have been high risk.

But each iteration of they cycle of failure makes it harder to have a fact-based conversation on our future. Politicians don't dare.

Yes, these number are around/published but were never used in anger. /8

@prospect_clark @prospect_uk I recall @theresa_may confronting @Jacob_Rees_Mogg and other 'spartans' (as we call them now) over their objections to the European Arrest Warrant when she was Home Sec. She faced them down. Argued coherently the 'cost' to sovereignty was easily trumped by security benefits. /9

@prospect_clark @prospect_uk @theresa_may @Jacob_Rees_Mogg That was in an era when politicians had cogent, rational arguments about why they did things. Didn't alway agree but there you go.

Now politicians who know the truth, often don't dare because it would 'politically suicidal'.

And as we know, one porkie usually needs another./10

@prospect_clark @prospect_uk @theresa_may @Jacob_Rees_Mogg So, anyway, that's all why @PhilipHammondUK now argues for #Brexit plan that forsakes the Bucanneering narrative and puts the GB in a full alignment (CU, SM for Goods, Level playing field) and Northern Ireland in a backstop /11

The really ambitious part is the idea that the EU will move rapidly to do this quickfire, barebones off the shelf deal so it is ready the day we leave.

So no transtion. Get a deal together (possible @PhilipHammondUK says given level of alignment) and implement in one hit/12

@PhilipHammondUK In effect that would create a 'one night' cliff-edge between UK as member and shift to the new arrangement.

It would also, he contends, tap latent disquiet among EU Member States about the 'trap' of the two-stage approach they developed, which seemed like a good idea but... /13

@PhilipHammondUK ....now seems to have got everyone in a bit of a mess.

To address concerns of UK being 'trapped' in this arrangement, the quickfire trade deal would also a one-year break clause.

So if the bucaneers could make cogent arguments for leaving, then they could do so /14

Of course that would mean erecting a hard border between GB and EU over the Dover-Calais 'short straits' crossing and between GB and Northern Ireland (still in it's backstop per Withdrawal Agreement) unless and until technology made the border work. /15

These ideas, he tells me, are intended to show to the EU - as @BorisJohnson plan hits buffers and we head for another extension - that there are still idea out there..and the transition could be used to find solutions, rather than just another political cycle that settles nowt/16

@BorisJohnson On the other stuff, @philiphammondUK is - as you'd expect - witheringly unrepentant about his decision to support the Benn Act and fearful that the current cabinet is leading the Tory Party to a place that will destroy its reputation for economic competence "overnight" /17

@BorisJohnson @PhilipHammondUK The full interview is here. We have a Tory government in power. He was Tory Chancellor until just a couple of months ago. Now he doesn't have the whip and is utterly corruscating about his former colleagues. Extraordinary when you think about it. ENDS/18

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…