No ECHR impossible within GFA. Breach GFA say goodbye to US trade deal.
If govt wants its Brexit to work it needs to prioritise and focus on the essential, not pick spurious fights.
Thread 1/
If govt wants its Brexit to work it needs to prioritise and focus on the essential, not pick spurious fights.
Thread 1/
2/ Start by defining Brexit in a more coherent way. Brexit can’t mean unconstrained sovereignty because that’s not feasible for a middle sized power like the UK.
It can mean being free from constraints of EU Treaties.
It can mean being free from constraints of EU Treaties.
3/ This is not he same as being unconstrained by EU power. The EU is nearby, huge and rich, and has a highly efficient mechanism for exercising its power through trade negotiations. The UK needs to accept this fact and choose from the trade offs this entails.
4/ That means either level playing field and no tariffs, or no-level playing field and have tariffs imposed.
LPF is calling to Brexiteers. Why leave the EU only to be told what to do by them. But no LPF will be extremely bad for industry in the red wall seats.
LPF is calling to Brexiteers. Why leave the EU only to be told what to do by them. But no LPF will be extremely bad for industry in the red wall seats.
5/ You can delude yourselves as much as you like that “economic interests” will lead the EU to make a deal. They won’t. Their economic interests aren’t what you pretend they are.
6/ More importantly, even after leaving the EU, the UK will be a mid-sized power constrained by international law and the politics of other states.
7/ An obvious constraint is the @BelfastAgmt, as is the WTO, but there are plenty of others. Too many brexiteers have a radical idea of sovereignty as reflecting the majority of the British parliament.
8/ I see the appeal of that idea: being able to hire governments, and fire them when they don’t do their job, which means they should only be accountable to the people who elect them.
9/ But the people’s freedom to change their minds about what their government does, means that government can’t make international promises (treaties)
10/ Imagine trying to do business with someone like that: “Of course we’ll agree the contract, but my shareholders might change their minds at any time and want a different one”
11/ Anyone doing business with you would make sure there were enforceable penalty clauses to stop you changing your mind.
12/ And if you kept writing letters to your shareholders saying that actually you would tear up other agreements with the same business associates (such as the ECHR) they would get more suspicious.
13/ It’s too much to ask Brexiteers to abandon this absolutist idea of sovereignty. It’s too wrapped up in what Brexit is about.
But it simply doesn’t work, because other states won’t trust you, and the UK is too small to impose its own will in the absence of trust.
But it simply doesn’t work, because other states won’t trust you, and the UK is too small to impose its own will in the absence of trust.
15/ If they want Brexit to succeed Brexiteers need to think of absolute national democratic sovereignty in the way leftists think of communism: nice idea, but doesn’t work in practice.
16/ Then, they need to prioritise. What is essential for Brexit? How can it be achieved? And what is not necessary (hint: attacks on the ECHR, BBC, Civil Service, universities).
You were voted in to do Brexit not have a culture war to address 101 non-problems. ENDS
You were voted in to do Brexit not have a culture war to address 101 non-problems. ENDS
