Peter Foster Profile picture
Aug 21, 2020 9 tweets 8 min read Read on X
You can read @MichelBarnier remarks on Round 7 of the UK-EU trade talks here (FR and EN).

Tl;dr. This sentence - paring back the 'ask' won't move EU stance on a need for level playing field - like it or not /1

ec.europa.eu/commission/pre… Image
@MichelBarnier The UK is deeply frustrated by this.

Why should it sign up to any such guarantees for a super-skinny, nay, emaciated, FTA?

But the EU have been banging on about this since the start - recall the March 2018 mandate.

Nothing if not consistent /2

consilium.europa.eu/media/33458/23… Image
@MichelBarnier The mood music is pretty ugly.

Technically, you can see landing zones on State Aid.

But fundamentally, the UK strategy (pare back the 'ask' until the EU caves) is potentially a risk for an 'accidental' no deal...

This @AntonSpisak gets at the issue /3
institute.global/policy/uk-fall…
@MichelBarnier @AntonSpisak I wrote something quite similar myself three weeks ago - this danger that the EU and UK talk across each other until it is too late. /4

@MichelBarnier @AntonSpisak Ultimately, with @BorisJohnson away camping, this round was always going to be limited.

But there is now a lot of pressure on the Sept 7-12 Round. If positions remain fixed then you'll start to hear alarm bells ringing.

Some will see that as usual part of process. But.../5
@MichelBarnier @AntonSpisak @BorisJohnson There is a lot to get done...and for all the macro political forces pointing towards the need for a deal, there is a world where @BorisJohnson convinces himself that, given the narrowing gap between what a deal and no deal delivers, the 'base' will warm to a 'no deal'. /6
@MichelBarnier @AntonSpisak @BorisJohnson That would be a catastrophic failure of statecraft.

A 'no deal' isn't an endstate in itself. It's a form of purgatory from which the UK will have to emerge.

How any government could justify willfully making people poorer is beyond me. But that doesn't mean it cant happen. /7
@MichelBarnier @AntonSpisak @BorisJohnson I still bet on a deal, optimist that I am. I'm not sure @BorisJohnson
has the stomach for a cliff-dive.

But we've seen with the A-Level fiasco the capacity for this government to ignore expert warnings and sleepwalk into messes of its own making.

So perhaps I'm just naive. ENDS
@MichelBarnier @AntonSpisak @BorisJohnson PS..Scotland might be another reason senior figures like @michaelgove might counsel against a no deal. This statement from Michael Russell @Feorlean gives you a taster of what's to come... Image

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More from @pmdfoster

Aug 1
NEW: Brussels issues UK list of “good faith” tests to fully implement EU-UK #Brexit divorce deal if it wants deeper relationship — not a bust up, but a clear reminder this won’t be easy. My and my esteemed Brussels colleague @AndyBounds via @ft /1

on.ft.com/3SsDC3y
The gripes are about fully implementing Windsor Framework — the deal that removed appearance of Irish Sea border — but still needs vet checks, parcel data, pet microchip checks, accurate certification of agrifoods. Which EU says isn’t fully happening. /2
Also some concerns still about treatment of EU citizens under the post Brexit settled
status scheme.

The UK Government says it’s fully committed to getting all this fixed. What’s interstate is EU Commission to make the point it needs doing — at first meeting. /3
Read 10 tweets
Jun 18
A quick (I promise) thread on @RachelReevesMP promises to boost EU-UK trade by aligning on regs (eg chemicals), doing a veterinary deal (no SPS checks) and boosting services via 'mutual recognition of professional qualifications' - taking each in order /1
First alignment. Two points:
1. via @joelreland of @UKandEU 'alignment doesn't get you access'.

See his new report here, setting out why technical agreements to improve EU-UK trade will have 'minimal' impact on economy /2

ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/upl…
Image
@joelreland @UKandEU 2. Not ALL industry want full-fat unilateral alignment. Even the food industry, you hear different voices (what about x, y, z pesticide use to grow barley/beets etc) OR in chemicals, see Chemical Industries Association @See_Chem_Bus to me here🚨🚨/3 Image
Read 11 tweets
Jan 27
NEW: Gove’s top-down plan to build 150,000 houses in Cambridge by 2040 declared “nonsensical” by local council leaders because they don’t have water supply to build existing plan for 50,000 by that date! 🤯 But Gove keeps giving interviews promising it/1

ft.com/content/d1c0bf…
“The 150,000 homes would appear to just be nonsensical, if I’m honest, because the infrastructure just isn’t there,” Mike Davey, @mikelode1 Labour leader of Cambridge City Council /2
@mikelode1 “We are a pro-growth council, but we’ve run out of water. So that leaves us with a lot of questions about how this can be delivered. Gove has to solve the water problem and the energy problem or it can’t be done,” Bridget Smith, LD leader of South Cambridgeshire @cllrbridget /3
Read 8 tweets
Sep 19, 2023
David Frosts column on #Brexit this morning goes in three phases:

- gaslighting readers over his “thin” deal being actually fat 🙄

- some actual truth on UK as rule taker

- and then total failure to admit he’s responsible for this mess 🧵1/4

telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/1…
First the gaslighting: his deal is a ‘reverse’ trade deal…it erects barriers, it doesn’t remove them. It’s only “broadest deal ever” if UK started from zero relations, rather than working down from Single Market membership. As he well knows, but I wonder about the readers.😬 /2 Image
Second the one bit of truth. To get closer to EU and fix bits of his rubbish deal, the UK will become a big rule taker. That will be hard. What Frost omits to say is that’s a pure function of the hideous position his #Brexit deal has put the UK in. And no seat at the table. /3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Jul 18, 2023
🚨🚨when ministers aren’t bashing UK universities they love to boast about them. Rightly. But unless something changes on funding there will be a lot less to boast about in 10 years time. /1

Here’s why via @ft Big Read…

on.ft.com/3rtAhGF
As Simon Marginson Higher Education prof at Oxford University explains the UK is in danger of getting back to the funding crisis levels that sparked need for tuition fees…/2 Image
These charts by @amy_borrett explain the basic problem. Triple whammy of inflation, #Brexit and risky over reliance on international students to x-subsidise undergrad teaching (previously used to make up research grant shortfalls). /3


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Read 8 tweets
Jun 29, 2023
Went to the Midlands to talk to UK manufacturers about slow #Brexit strangle. @MakeUK_ CEO Stephen Phipson summed up the challenge:

"The question we must ask is, ‘would Airbus make all their wings in the UK, if they were making that decision now’?” /1

https://t.co/YwerpUopHKft.com/content/2f99a9…


What he's getting at is that #Brexit is not, as is still widely supposed, a one-off event that companies adjust to.

It's a permanent friction that makes UK companies a risker bet for your supply chain than an EU company. And that matters for maufacturing/2
That's because 50 per cent of UK exports are from manufacturing, and of those that go to EU, around 50 per cent feed into EU supply chains -- so they make bits of things that criss-cross Europe to become whole things that then get exported to rest of world. /3
Read 12 tweets

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