Peter Foster Profile picture
Sep 18, 2020 12 tweets 15 min read Read on X
So the fury continues about @borisjohnson threat to overwrite #Brexit withdrawal agreement...but the EU hasn't walked....and the shape of a Brexit deal is there to be done. The unanswered Q is whether the UK wants to do it - my latest via @ft 1/

ft.com/content/7eb79c…
@BorisJohnson @FT It might seem like all is lost, but it is notable that @MichelBarnier is still talking - if only to make sure that the EU doesn't get the blame - and waiting and watching to see if UK moves to make a deal...the shape of which seems pretty obvious. It goes like this/2
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier The UK does a deal to unlock a 'zero tariff, zero quota' Free Trade Agreement - which of course requires both sides to reach a deal on State Aid and level playing field...but the shape of that deal IS possible. See this @instituteforgov report for ideas/3

instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/…
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov It wd fall way short of the EU’s opening demand for dynamic alignment/ECJ but would require the UK to accept “shared principles” on subsidies that go beyond broad WTO definitions; an independent regulator with legal redress and, probably, a dispute resolution mechanism./4
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov To be clear the UK - as @DavidGHFrost
said y'day - the UK is a long way from this as their State Aid paper showed. And fact that they've been rowing about this since before Christmas in London (Leadsom v Cummings then) suggests it's a real issue /5

gov.uk/government/new…
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov @DavidGHFrost BUT if you get that zero/zero deal then the Northern Ireland Protocol issues CAN be massaged away.

a) with zero tariffs the 'at risk' issue of goods paying tariffs GB into NI evaporates (still lots of SPS to do but tariffs point is sorted) /6
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov @DavidGHFrost The 'reach back' issue with Article 10 can also be sorted via some clear guidance from the Commission, since you'll have a baseline deal on state aid anyway - @BrunoBrussels has talked of a 'codicil' addressing this issue (more here) /7
ft.com/content/de1af5…
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov @DavidGHFrost @BrunoBrussels There is of course a huge problem of political choreography on both sides now.

The EU has set a Sept 30 deadline for UK to drop the legislation (not happening) but Johnson and co are also a long way up the tree, so to speak. /8
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov @DavidGHFrost @BrunoBrussels One fix is Commission starts infringement proceedings on Sept 30 before bill becomes law - it believes it can - to satisfy its honour.

While the UK side stops the bill actually coming law so that..../9
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov @DavidGHFrost @BrunoBrussels IF an zero/zero FTA can be done and the NI Protocol issues addressed, then that will come at the price of UK dropping the legislation (or the offending sections 42-45) as a price of a deal.

The EU and EU Parliament already clear on this. /10
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov @DavidGHFrost @BrunoBrussels The only question is whether the UK wants to do the deal.

Or if the pivot to sovereignty means that the EU baseline ask on State Aid/level playing field is just too much for Cummings and CO. /11
@BorisJohnson @FT @MichelBarnier @instituteforgov @DavidGHFrost @BrunoBrussels IF that is the case, then there is a brute logic to the move to re-write the Northern Ireland Protocol because a 'no deal' super-sovereignty FTA is incompatible with elements of the Protocol as it stands...but that way, as we've seen, a stormy future lies. ENDS

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More from @pmdfoster

Jan 27
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

ft.com/content/d1c0bf…
“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
Read 8 tweets
Sep 19, 2023
David Frosts column on #Brexit this morning goes in three phases:

- gaslighting readers over his “thin” deal being actually fat 🙄

- some actual truth on UK as rule taker

- and then total failure to admit he’s responsible for this mess 🧵1/4

telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/1…
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 Image
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 Image
Read 4 tweets
Jul 18, 2023
🚨🚨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

Here’s why via @ft Big Read…

on.ft.com/3rtAhGF
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 Image
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


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Read 8 tweets
Jun 29, 2023
Went to the Midlands to talk to UK manufacturers about slow #Brexit strangle. @MakeUK_ CEO Stephen Phipson summed up the challenge:

"The question we must ask is, ‘would Airbus make all their wings in the UK, if they were making that decision now’?” /1

https://t.co/YwerpUopHKft.com/content/2f99a9…


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
Read 12 tweets
Mar 22, 2023
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
Read 6 tweets
Mar 22, 2023
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.

obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploa… == see p.47
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.
Read 4 tweets

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