+UPDATE+

UK Treasury officials have pivoted to planning a no deal combined with higher taxation strategy post January. Previous research based on a "free trade Brexit" now seen as "unrealistic" in a post COVID global environment.
2/

UK Govt "highly conscious" that "significant expenditure will have to be distributed" to the "instant losers" of COVID & Brexit. No or limited deal with EU now seen as most likely outcome but in a "totally changed landscape" than imagined just last year.
3/

Consensus now emerging in Whitehall, that Britain will "not likely" sign "significant" trade deals with either EU or US & many other target states anytime soon. So the post Brexit economic model may have to radically change from one foreseen previously.
4/

There's also an awareness, and increasing acceptance, in govt that the "Gove view" that Brexit must be shown to be a success from the start means that higher taxes and/or higher borrowing are now unavoidable in order to ensure Brexit is "not tainted" by economic disaster.

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More from @nicktolhurst

18 Aug
I really enjoyed my discussions with pro Brexit people on twitter detailing the benefits on trade & economy of Brexit. Often friendly - we might have disagreed but it was interesting.

Unfortunately, these petered out around 2018.

I never see these people here now.
Not one.
It’s why I never accuse every leave vote of being racist.

As I remember all the decent oft serious pro Brexiters from EFTAites & Brexit-as-catalyst-for-free-trade to constitutional-dignity Brexiters.

They’re all gone from here.

They know.

They’re just hoping for the best now.
2/

It’s important to remember this.

It’s not just “our EU” that’s gone it’s these sort of people - intelligent, informed & polite - it’s “their Brexit” that’s gone too.

Everyone sensible knows this.

The debate is - literally - over.

Brexit is dead but its still happening.
Read 11 tweets
17 Aug
Soon Putin will realize Lukaschenko regime can’t be saved but he’ll try to ensure Belarus doesn’t become a European denocracy - perhaps even a EU one.

Normally at this point the US president would stand firm.

I presume Trump is already on board with Putin to try & stop this.
2/

This explains why Lukaschenko is standing firm when most regimes would have already crumbled.

It’s the 1st time in history the Russians have US acquiescence to maintain a post Soviet dictatorship.
3/

It’s a rather strange situation.

The Belarus population, or at the very least the protestors, are likely smart enough to realize that they simply cannot count on the US for anything here.

So what happens now?
Read 4 tweets
12 Aug
+UPDATE+

Govt papers circulating in Whitehall claim that much of the recent development in Medway/Kent region as part of the Thames Gateway Project is “nonsensical”...

...as rising sea levels will require “an increasing retreat” from low lying Kent areas “within a generation”.
2/

The govt “is relaxed” about areas in East of England that have garnered more media attention as these are often lightly populated & “retreat is already in process”.

Development in Kent though appears to still be planned & undertaken as if sea level rises “are not happening”.
3/

Govt estimates as many as 30 000 “newly built properties” in Kent alone will thus be unsustainable within the next 2 decades without huge investment in sea defences - which will almost certainly be more costly than simply abondoning these homes and rebuilding further inland.
Read 4 tweets
1 Aug
People shocked at peerages for Evgeny Lebedev & Claire Fox miss the main motive here.

Boris Johnson knows Russian influence can expose him & be rolled back after he’s gone.

His aim here is to make the entire British state & very establishment complicit in this so it can’t.
2/

I’ve been banging on about this for years: every state has a bit of corruption - thats nothing new.

The key to protecting yourself is if you can make important institutions “publicly complicit” in your corruption, it becomes impossible to roll back - even by the uncorrupted.
3/

That’s why Trump has attempted to destroy US institutions - even when they didn’t oppose him - as the very existence of decent, law abiding public institutions is a potential threat to him - now & post presidency.

...this is now the path Boris Johnson is taking Britain down.
Read 4 tweets
21 Jul
+UPDATE+

UK govt “refused to undertake any investigations into Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 Brexit referendum”.

This is against all standard practice.
Indeed even US govt investigated Russian electoral interference - even though Trump was its chief beneficiary.
2/

Speechless.

Absolutely incredible.

Might as well disband the intelligence services now - after what’s the point?

theguardian.com/world/2020/jul…
3/

The Russian Report is far far worse than I feared.

I had imagined there would be some suggestions but no smoking gun - but the smoking gun is right there.

The UK govt refused any investigation of Russian influence into the referendum.

Why?
Theres only one answer.
Read 7 tweets
20 Jul
Don’t underestimate the absolute car crash body-blow that’ll hit right wing politics if/when Trump suffers humiliating electoral defeat this November.

The next years will be a rolling media expose of everything Trump did that his enablers knew - but now have incentive to reveal.
2/

Impossible to prove but I’m convinced that the Trump election victory enthused even radicalised a lot of Brexit supporters as evidence the “world was going their way”...

..but the opposite is also true. Post Trump Brexit looks & feels weaker. Less zeitgeist & more a problem.
3/

A Trump-less Brexit all of a sudden changes the whole dynamic.

Britain will be seen - and see itself - as an outlier with a massive challenge to solve not part of the new zeitgeist. Biden will look to rebuild US leadership & this his 1st calls will be to Berlin & Paris.
Read 6 tweets

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