Thread by @pmdfoster

Just to take a step back for a moment. The Irish Protocol was designed to protect the all-Ireland economy and peace process after #brexit.

It was an "all weather" vehicle, designed to withstand precisely the storm of a 'no deal' - that's its point 1/thread

It was a very deliberately constructed insurance policy.

So the Government's apparent attempts to re-write it, pare it back is like an insurance company trying to wheedle out of a pre-agreed policy, as @GeorgePeretzQC has observed. /2

@GeorgePeretzQC That cannot BUT have impact on the trust levels between the parties when they come to sign a new insurance policy - this time in regards of the Level Playing Field needed as the basis for the EU giving the UK 'zero tariff, zero quota' access to the Single Market. /3

@GeorgePeretzQC If the negotiation is about trust - but also with a legal foundation for that trust (as always in the EU and contracts) how can you do that with an interlocutor that is apparently willing to unilaterally re-write a deal that it signed in the light of changed circumstances /4

@GeorgePeretzQC Given the above - and however the UKIM bill is couched the damage to trust is now surely already done - you wonder what the decision to do this says about UK thinking on the likelihood of concluding a trade deal with the European Union. /5

@GeorgePeretzQC If you believed that was likely, then why would you do something potentially so toxic to the negotiations?

At the very least, this move surely betrays very, very low levels of confidence on UK side that a deal can be done. /6

@GeorgePeretzQC There is also the political difficulty of putting this 'genie' back in the bottle. Those who have been lobbying for the Protocol to be ditched must surely be encouraged. Can @BorisJohnson do any deal, other than a 'no deal' that satisfies them? /7

@GeorgePeretzQC @BorisJohnson The Government says it does NOT want to rip up the Protocol. That it intends to implement it (albeit on its own terms) but we'll have to see where, in practice, that leaves Northern Ireland and Ireland. IF we end up in a 'no deal' can the govt resist political pressure? /8

@GeorgePeretzQC @BorisJohnson The Protocol was always difficult (see threads passim) and the fact that the govt is to spend £200m helping facilitate trade across the Irish Sea, but with a zero/zero deal and good will etc with the EU it could be made to work. The DUP seemed resigned to that /9

@GeorgePeretzQC @BorisJohnson But in a 'no deal' world we get back serious Qs about how Ireland manages its position in the Single Market if the border is not being maintained to EU satisfaction. Will we be discussing Alternative Arrangements again? That's where the logic goes if UK diverges over time/10

@GeorgePeretzQC @BorisJohnson Hopefully the existing mechanism will hold. There will be a dispute procedures etc that can work out how to operationalise the Protocol even in a no deal, but those on the harder end of the #Brexit debate do want to junk it /11

@GeorgePeretzQC @BorisJohnson At the same time, some kind of equilibrium needs to be maintained while the UK negotiations a future Trade deal (after a 'no deal')...the kind of real Canada style deal (with tariffs etc) that could emerge from a no deal. Much less trust required. /12

The EU has been super calm since news of this all broke, awaiting details etc.

But it would seem to be difficult, given what Barnier and Von Der Leyen have said on Protocol implementation, for them to look past this. /13

Perhaps if the clauses are 'contingent' on a 'no deal' happening, that might give some breathing space.

But as noted above, it hardly creates atmosphere conducive to negotiations. /14

And all this when - by all accounts - the talks on the Protocol were going perfectly well.

There seemed to be hope that the supermarkets/tariffs/summary declarations issues could be, if not 'fixed' then made to work.

Never going to be easy. But we signed the deal. /15

From EU side, there is a sense now that Protocol (signed in conjunction with a Political Declaration) was really just signed for the narrow purpose of getting a deal - to win an election. That worked, spectacularly. But now the goalposts have moved. Total sovereignty. /16

We are sailing into very troubled waters - which were anticipated. Hence the mutually agreed Frontstop (the NI-only solution that @theresa_may said no PM could ever agree to) whose foundations now seem to be being undermined. ENDS