Thread by @pmdfoster

So. EU27 have wrapped up their pre-match #Brexit trade & security negotiations team talk...the emphasis in the slides is revealing to EU thinking.

First, as the EU would see it, they are NOT trying to stop UK 'diverging', as I suspect will be the 'freedom' mantra in UK /1

There is irritation in some EU circles that the UK political establishment is trying to paint the EU as a great regulatory octopus, whose tentacles are constantly clawing the UK back into its crushing regulatory maw, stopping the 'free' UK from its new prosperous future /2

Not so, says EU. They accept the premise of "divergence", BUT given size and proximity of UK there will need to be some solid ground rules to make it work. And this will be in interests of both sides, in a kind of 'this will hurt me more than it hurts you' kind of way/3

So the EU then applies a set of 'principles' as an overlay or filter to the entire future relationship.
- no free-riding
- no divide n rule
- no holes in single market
- no special treatment w/r to other 3rd countries /4

Which of course, is a way of the EU saying, as we teeter towards the new #Brexit clifftop, 'allez-y, mon brave' but don't expect to rush in and save you from yourselves. You must do what you need to do, but we'll act always in "union interest" - a phrase that occurs repeatedly/5

So there will be an "ambitious" agreement on services, but it won't look like single market membership. Host state rules will apply; qualifications will be mutually recognised for professions...you guessed it...."of interest to the Union". /6

Now this is all perfectly logical, as @MichelBarnier will not tire of reminding the Brits....but that does not mean that IT WONT GET UP BRITISH NOSES! /7

@MichelBarnier This is doubly so, since the politicians aren't being straight with people about what the deal means.

Zero-tariff, zero-quota does NOT = 'free movement of goods'.

The NI-frontstop DOES mean checks for goods crossing Irish Sea from GB to NI /8

@MichelBarnier And this is where the negotiations will get hard, since as @LeoVaradkar points out in his @bbclaurak interview today, this idea of a 'piecemeal' deal, with a governance mechanism that allows British cakeism to creep back in, isn't what the EU have in mind. /9

@MichelBarnier @LeoVaradkar @bbclaurak What the EU describes as just and purely logical - given that the UK, with its zero-tariff deal wants better access to EU markets than either Norway or Switzerland - will start to look very punitive to many British eyes. /10

@MichelBarnier @LeoVaradkar @bbclaurak Because, of course, the EU is indeed a giant regulatory octopus, a trade hegemon that exports its rules via a) the size of its markets b) the scope of it trade agreeements with other countries.

It is that power that makes UK manufactures so reluctant to 'diverge' /11

@MichelBarnier @LeoVaradkar @bbclaurak These are going to be the hard lessons of Brexit - that the UK ends up as a rule-taker, even when they have the nominal 'freedom' to diverge.

Just look at Swiss attempt to break from Free Movement, or Norway and the Postal Services Directive. Fail. /12

@MichelBarnier @LeoVaradkar @bbclaurak So in practice the UK will be free to do a lot of things, but it won't - AND YET it will suck up a huge amount of cost in order to be free to do something that, economically, doesn't make sense. /13

@MichelBarnier @LeoVaradkar @bbclaurak We won't be a 'vassal' in theory, but we may quickly feel like one.

Which means probably a frictional relationship (politically as well as economically) for a long while to come. 14/ENDS