1/ Thread of random things to keep in mind when reading these and other stories about the border this week as the UK attempts to start actually enforcing its own regulatory checks.
The book's premise is that trade policy is a growing part of the conversation around issues, from jobs to healthcare and even war that voters actually care about...
... but it's complex and counter-intuitive, so politicians can lie about it with impunity, and that matters.
1/ I like people and think they're overwhelmingly good and decent.
My default assumption is that whatever the slogans, or extremist elements, the vast majority of the people on the streets are just appalled by the images coming out of Gaza, and are calling for peace.
2/ Has every single person marching got a comprehensive and fool proof 12 point plan for reconciling Palestinian independence, Israeli security, regional geo-stability and the million other factors at play?
No, and that's fine. Marches are about sending signals that we care.
3/ Do I, as a Jew, wish the marchers were a little bit more thoughtful about the implications of some of their messaging?
Sure. I guess.
But it's a mass movement and like all such things, creates its own social incentives for having the spiciest take in the room.
1/ International law lacks enforcement because major powers negotiating it did not want mechanisms that could kinetically prevent, curtail or punish the pursuit of their ends, even if the means involved breach the letter or spirit of the law.
2/ What little power international law has is almost entirely normative.
It only matters as long as countries believe it matters - and so for lack of better options we repeat ad nauseum that it does, while also arguing its broad benefits outweigh any specific constraints.
3/ What's infuriating about this is that reinforcing the normative power of international law rhetorically requires a great deal of exaggeration, selective vision and hypocrisy.
To make the case that international law matters we have to ignore all the times it clearly didn't.