Thread by @pmdfoster

NEW: Boris Johnson's 'arbitrary' Brexit deadline will damage UK economy, warn 14 UK trade experts in letter to @Telegraph - lamenting falsehoods on both sides and calling for equivalent of OBR to help create fact-based conversation around trade /1.

telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/…

@Telegraph Letter in full here. Signatories:
@davidtinline
@dmitryopines
@samuelmarclowe
@allierenison
@coppetainpu
@davidheniguk
@namali_mackay
@annajerzewska
@stwolpers
@guydej1
@TTIP_Tracker /2

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker Importantly, the letter is bipartisan.

It laments BOTH Leavers promising “unattainable benefits” or Remainer warnings of “impossibly dire consequences”.

It is a cri de coeur for seriousness, transparency and, almost most important of all, engaging the public. /3

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker There is this slightly odd idea out there (and this is me now) that trade part of #Brexit will be 'boring' and 'back pages' (that's certainly what @BorisJohnson hopes) but I fear that that is a misplaced view. Trade gets political and nasty - just look at NHS election debate/4

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker @BorisJohnson Recall that TTIP (the failed US-EU transatlantic deal) was mired in vicious political rows about investor-state resolution boards, animal welfare, the NHS etc

I think I'm right to say 38 Degrees, the campaign group, became largest single-issue membership group in UK from this /5

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker @BorisJohnson Free trade is often presented as both an unalloyed good on the Right and a global menace on the Left, but in truth it presents us with a series of choices and trade-offs that will be invidious and politically combustible.

It will pay politicians to heed the authors /5

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker @BorisJohnson This really isn't 'remoanerism' or 'doomsterism'....its only relevant if #Brexit is done in any case. Then no turning back, so PERHAPS the pols will settle down a bit and start levelling with the public. Or the risk is the real world will level with them. /6

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker @BorisJohnson As they write (and these are people with real-world experience of doing trade deals)

"There is little point negotiating a deal without knowing whether it will gain domestic approval."

Taking back control of trade also means you take the blame too... /7

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker @BorisJohnson So as my colleague Alan Tovey @batsub1 reports, the SMMT @SMMT reckons a 'no deal' Brexit in 2020 =
- 1.5 million fewer vehicles worth £43bn made in UK over the next 5 years
- annual output dropping by a THIRD to just one million a year by 2024. /8

telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/…

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker @BorisJohnson @batsub1 @SMMT I recently read this by Joycle Liddle and John Shutt at @NorthumbriaUni - it's academic, not a rip-roaring yarn, but sober you up pretty quick. The N'east voted for Brexit but its jobs & GDP most exposed to impacts of a hard deal. /9

waterstones.com/book/the-north…

@Telegraph @DavidTinline @DmitryOpines @SamuelMarcLowe @AllieRenison @CoppetainPU @DavidHenigUK @namali_mackay @AnnaJerzewska @STWolpers @guydej1 @TTIP_Tracker @BorisJohnson @batsub1 @SMMT @NorthumbriaUni It looks increasingly likely #Brexit will happen.

As regular readers will know (and this drives plenty mad) I still think it probably needs to happen. There was a vote.

But we don't have to do a faceplant #Brexit. Really we don't.

It will have been our choice. ENDS /10