NEW: 🚨🚨🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨🚨🚨UK planning legislation to override key parts of #brexit withdrawal treaty and Northern Ireland protocol - a potentially HUGE move in negotiations; major ructions in Whitehall - my latest via @FT on.ft.com/2FeQyY4
@FT Per three sources with knowledge of plans the UK Internal Market bill (due on Weds) and this autumn's Finance Bill will contain clauses that “eliminate the legal force of parts of the withdrawal agreement”. The EU are unlikely to like this - which I guess is the point /2
@FT Given @MichelBarnier
insistence on the "precise implementation" of the Withdrawal Agreement, the decision to legislate in a way that dilutes those obligations - on State Aid, export summary declarations and tariffs - is not likely to go down well with the EU /3
@FT@MichelBarnier A person familiar with the plans said they would “clearly and consciously” undermine the agreement on Northern Ireland that Boris Johnson signed last October - but which in the light of the diamond-hard Brexit he's negotiating, now looks very difficult. /4
@FT@MichelBarnier A second person familiar with the plans said they were a "blunt instrument" that would directly "set up UK law in opposition with obligations under the withdrawal agreement, and in full cognisance that this will breach international law.” /5
@FT@MichelBarnier A lot of Whitehall is *deeply* uncomfortable with this approach.
Foreign Office not sure how it can criticise China for not meeting international obligation if UK is paring back obligations of a Treaty it signed in less than a year ago.
Or help Int Trade dept sign deals /6
@FT@MichelBarnier Brexiters - who have been calling on @BorisJohnson to ditch the Withdrawal Agreement - will like this move.
And in a 'no deal' scenario, where the UK seeks untrammeled sovereignty, it has a powerful logic. /7
@FT@MichelBarnier@BorisJohnson The problem is that @BorisJohnson promised to remove the UK from the EU "whole and entire" - but it has become clear that his Northern Irish 'frontstop' does not do that to the satisfaction of Brexiters.
@FT@MichelBarnier@BorisJohnson@CentreBrexit The biggest problem is Article 10 - which says that Northern Ireland must follow EU state aid rules AND that EU law (Annex 5) shall apply to the *United Kingdom* (and not just in respect of Northern Ireland. /9
@FT@MichelBarnier@BorisJohnson@CentreBrexit For Brexiters that creates a potential huge trojan horse for Brussels to reach back into UK policy even in the event of a "clean-break" not deal - the UK Govt would have to notify Brussels of S.Aid decision that impacted companies in NI. /10
@FT@MichelBarnier@BorisJohnson@CentreBrexit Sources say that UK Internal Market Bill will contain "notwithstanding clauses" - i'e 'notwithstanding our obligations under the protocol' define in a far narrower way what the Northern Irish Protocol means on state aid and unfettered access for NI trade to GB. /11
@FT@MichelBarnier@BorisJohnson@CentreBrexit@jamesrwebber The plan - which I understand has been backed personally by @DavidGHFrost
would “clearly and consciously” undermine the Protocol....which both sides were working hard to implement. The move divided Whitehall at the highest levels. /13
@FT@MichelBarnier@BorisJohnson@CentreBrexit@jamesrwebber@DavidGHFrost A goverment said it was “working hard to resolve outstanding issues” with the Northern Ireland protocol in good faith. But added: “As a responsible government, we are considering fall-back options in the event this is not achieved to ensure the communities of NI are protected”/14
@FT@MichelBarnier@BorisJohnson@CentreBrexit@jamesrwebber@DavidGHFrost Recall that the @BorisJohnson 'frontstop' was negotiated with the Political Declaration along side it - a declaration that talked about a State Aid regime, a level playing field between both sides and a comprehensive FTA. All of that now looks very distant /16
Is this a gambit? A move to try and force the EU to re-write the protocol or - if not - have a hands-free 'no deal' all the same.
I've been doing this long enough (think back to Oct 2019) not to make foolhardy predictions....we'll have to see. /18
How the EU reacts will be interesting. It may depend just how brazenly the legislation cuts across the Protocol.
@MichelBarnier has been determinedly calm these last few months - he may remain so. Wait and see how it plays out. I don't know. /19
@MichelBarnier But this does feel to those familiar with the plans like a major move by a govt increasingly resigned to a 'no deal' or 'Australian' exit - and one that risks calling into question the reputation of the UK as a country that negotiates in good faith. Let's see. ENDS
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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
“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
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
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
🚨🚨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
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
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
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
This was interesting session. The 'chart wars' are a bit baffling if you're not an economist. I'm not. But I am a reporter. Gudgin argued #Brexit had no effect on the economy, but I don't know how that squares with all the conversations I've had with business in last 6 years/1
I get you can argue over the quantum of #brexit impact -- Springford model says -5.5% GDP, Portes reckons that fees too high, says thinks -2.5%...Jessop said -1%, but transitory...but "nothing" surely doesn't pass the sniff-test (to quote Gudgen on Springford's Doppelgangers /2
The empircal work by Jun Du at Warwick and Thomas Sampson at LSE on the numbers of traded lines/relationships, for example, can't amount to "nothing"; nor can UK parlous trade performance; even if non-differentiated impact on EU v RoW exports isn't yet explained/3
Graham Gudgin says that @JohnSpringford "doppelganger" method of analysing Brexit is a "statistical artefact" -- one that is used by Office of Budget Responsibility in their March 2023 forecast.
Gudgin concludes that Brexit has had no real impact on UK economy. And talk about Brexit masks real reason for productivity crunch. OBR, Bank of England, CER etc and BBC/FT that report these studies are distracting.
Now @JohnSpringford responds to criticisms of his doppelganger method. Says that its misleading to compare individual countries. The Doppelganger composite smooths out differences, which is why it makes better counterfactual.