First, the House of Lords *tomorrow* needs to gut the Internal Market Bill of the offending clauses, and then the Government will have to not threaten to put the clauses back in during ping-pong.
Second, the outstanding issues in the negotiations - not least on fishing, Level Playing Field and especially on governance need to be hammered out.
Third, this all has to be framed somehow like Johnson is the winner. Make it look too much like he isn't and he'll react emotionally, and his backbenchers will cry foul.
Fourth, the Tory comms machine is going to have to then swing into action *very quickly* to make it seem the EU nevertheless gave the UK a bad deal, so as the EU rather than UK, is to blame for border chaos in January.
The chances all this goes smoothly, and calm and level headedness prevail from Johnson and Number 10... I am still not certain
But maybe Johnson ate more humble pie this weekend than I had thought
/ends
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The essential problem with much of the commentary on UK-US relations and Biden's win, especially with regard to Brexit, is a misunderstanding of perception / communication, versus reality
Let's start with the prospect of a US-UK trade deal, post-Brexit
There has NEVER been a realistic prospect of this deal happening
Why?
The Democrats have controlled the House since the end of 2018, and the House has to approve any Deal
The US would have pushed for agriculture and healthcare to be included in a Deal, the UK would have pushed for financial services. On the substance it would have become a nightmare
And that's before you even come to the implications of Brexit and trade on Ireland
The conventional wisdom* over the past few weeks has been that a Biden win makes a Brexit Deal more likely
But, to borrow a phrase from Will Davies, what is going on in UK politics just now is not normal
With Biden on the verge of the Presidency, a thread...
The conventional argument: Biden wins = multilateralism wins, it's a repudiation of go-it-alone belligerence in int. affairs, Biden will offer an 🕊 to Europe - and in that context Britain should not be left alone.
Tories also think Biden makes a 🇬🇧🇺🇸 trade deal less likely**
The other side, conventional wisdom: had Trump won, that would have kept the dream of a 🇬🇧🇺🇸 trade deal alive**, and mini-Trump Johnson would have had an ally in Washington for the next 4 years, so the UK's price to go it alone would be lower
This may be dangerous, but I am going to attempt a thread about the US election
Take this with a hefty pinch of salt, because I do not know much about US politics
But that's the point
Neither do you, probably
The difference between being a political analyst and a political polemicist is that the former should actually help contribute to our understanding, while the latter will use any opportunity or lever to defend their line or their side.
The problem is that analysis is hard.
"How could Trump perform so well, given so many Americans have died from COVID?"
People thought Trump was doing his best?
People doubted Biden would do better?
People believed in conspiracy theories about it?
In the past fortnight I've commonly heard the idea that if Biden wins, that'll increase the chances of a #Brexit Deal
If Trump wins it will be the opposite
Is that right?
To test my assumptions I've made a basic diagram
I think one aspect is right: if Trump wins, that will indeed increase Number 10's likely belligerence - if Trump can triumph against the odds, surely so can we, and so let's sock it to the EU - No Deal
If Biden wins it's actually not so clear
There are two factors to bear in mind
First, how does Biden react? If Anthony Gardner's words turn out to be true, that is *not* going to go down well in Number 10! theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/an…
Emails have been leaked where ČD and ÖBB (Austrian State Railways) correspond re. the sales of second hand carriages, to make sure they don't get into RegioJet's hands
The essence here is - not for the first time - that efforts to liberalise Europe's railways are stacked against rivals to the state incumbent railways.
This thread is about a very personal lucky escape - not catching Coronavirus and what happened next
Generally throughout the pandemic so far my view has been that Germany has been coping comparatively well. Now I am not so sure...
So to the story...
On 8 Oct, my partner and I moved flat from Kreuzberg (near Gleisdreieckpark) to Neukölln (near S/U Hermannstrasse). Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has been rivalling Neukölln and Mitte as the 3 Berlin Bezirke with the highest COVID cases per 100k inhabitants
On Sunday 18 Oct we went by 🚲 to Friedrichshain to have dinner with 2 friends.
Turns out that a person they had met the previous day - 17 October - had tested positive, but that was not known at the time.