Intense clarity of thought, as ever , by @AntonSpisak unpicking the "blockade" issue in @prospect_uk
- one level petulant nonsense (with some fault on both sides) on another a serious indicator of lack of trust 1/thread
The EU has been using 'third country' listing as leverage (some unnecessary gloating behind scenes here) but the talk of a "blockade" is wildly inflammatory spin from the UK side which has safeguards /2
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk As Spisak points out - and I've been trying to point out - a "blockade" would violate Art 6 of the Protocol that requires "best endeavours" on NI-GB trade, but Art 16 offers even greater safeguards. /3
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk Note that you don't need riots, unrest or terror to invoke Art 16 - just the "diversion of trade". It's a low bar.
But as Spisak says the row over "third country listing" is emblematic of lack of state of trust in talks...but also speaks to deeper issue/4
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk The UK position "we'll notify you of any changes, we're convergent on day one" is a re-emergence of a fundamental misapprehension about how EU works, and would treat the UK as a "third country" after #Brexit - viz, like any other. /5
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk The issue is NOT day one convergence, its about the UK promise of divergence on day 10, day 100, day 1,000, day 10,000 and creating a system of trust/visibility that enables a 'zero for zero' FTA /6
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk And of course, beneath this is the knowledge that the UK will have to diverge on plant/animal health standards if it wants that trade deal with the USA - and yes, in the clash of those regulatory hegemons, the EU is prepared to use its leverage. /7
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk The UK is, of course, piggy-in-the-middle here (welcome to #Brexit) and what we've seen this last week is the piggy starting to squeal, squeezed in Brussels and in Washington, as @DominicRaab will have felt - not just on Good Friday, but more fundamentally on trade/8
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk@DominicRaab The UK approach "we'll notify you as a sovereign power" is similarly infecting the state aid/level-playing field discussion which must be resolved to turn the key on an zero/zero FTA...that will in turn help resolve the NI Protocol issues. /9
@AntonSpisak@prospect_uk@DominicRaab The UK can do the deal or it can squeal, do a 'no deal' and beat its sovereign breast, and perhaps (I don't know) politically that's now necessary for both sides to reach a genuine Canada-style deal (with tariffs) after the fact. But the basic choice set will remain. 10/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.