Thread by @CliveWismayer

I want to talk about the revised Withdrawal Agreement (‘the WA’) & the supposed liability it imposes on the UK to cough up £160B, a figure which caused IDS to hitch up his skirts & scream. And, word of warning, this is a thread. So turn to something else if your ..

.. attention-span is limited.

For this purpose, I have skimmed the political declaration & the WA, both of which can be found online here:

gov.uk/government/pub…

A few things:

• nowhere in the WA are any particular sums of money mentioned
• OTOH Part 5, which begins on p.205 & runs on for 58 pages concerns ‘financial provisions’.
• the entire WA is 541 pages long, thus the financial provisions comprise more than a tenth of the ..

.. whole in terms of length
• the WA is not for the faint-hearted. I, for one, understand very little of it.

So what’s the fuss about? Well, look at this article in Breitbart News dated 5th Aug 20:

breitbart.com/europe/2020/08…

I’ll quote from it:

‘Sir Iain Duncan Smith has called on the British government to scrap the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement after it was revealed that the United Kingdom could be on the hook for billions in European Union loan payments.’

..

.. ‘ ... it has been revealed that the United Kingdom possibly faces £160 billion in loan payments on top of the £39 billion so-called divorce settlement.’

Further:

‘The loan payments are reportedly due to Britain’s ties to the European Investment Bank and the ..

.. European Financial Stability Mechanism, which doles out money to EU member-states throughout the bloc.
Experts have estimated that the 12 per cent liability that Britain is required to pay under the current agreement could be £160 billion, according to The Sun.’

The ..

.. article quotes Duncan Smith as saying:

‘Buried in the fine print, unnoticed by many, is the fact we remain hooked into the EU’s loan book.’

As to this, nothing in the WA is in fine print. The print is the same throughout. Nor is anything buried. The WA deals with ..

.. the UK’s continuing liability to the European Investment Bank on p.241 et seq, as shown here.

Now, call me simple, but it took me half an hour to find this. I’m not an MP & no one is paying me. My expertise is probably comparable to Duncan Smith’s & what I want to know is: why didn’t he, or seemingly anyone else, ask the government for estimates of the liabilities ..

.. imposed by the financial provisions before passing the associated legislation?

The govt. cannot possibly not have made such estimates. Indeed, why not ask for them now? Is what the govt. plans to do with our money a secret?

Anyway, point is, Duncan Smith & all ..

.. the rabid ERG nutters are posturing morons. They had one thing to do & they fucked it up. Now, like little children, they scream & whine that it’s not fair &, a recent twist, have started to blame remainer MPs for the fiasco.

I’m not making that up. It’s our fault the ..

.. hole we’re in has got so deep. Whaddaya know!

The sooner these bungling frauds are sent packing, the better.