Thread by @pmdfoster

Right. What a week in #Brexit. First talk of Barnier pulling the plug; and today a big flap over fish. So where are we as M. Barnier boards the Eurostar for London? Well, you guessed it - still stuck on the fundamentals. Why? Well, here's what I know. 1/Thread

First, the talk that @MichelBarnier was issuing ultimatums - that spoke to real frustration on EU side. Things are getting spicy, but missed the fact that the EU will never walk away. They just don't. As he reassured EU ambassadors today /2

theguardian.com/politics/2020/…

@MichelBarnier No, and @DavidGHFrost has said the same. So if this negotiation fails, it will be because it just bleeds out on the table, right before our eyes,, and both sides simply overestimate the political will of the other to save the patient. Each will have their own blame narrative /3

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost So where are the talks on the substance? Is it 'just about the fish' or is the 'level playing field' issue dragging the whole thing down?

Most fundamentally it's about the rules for free and fair competition, I think, when all the noises subsides. /4

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost And as my inestimable colleague @jimbrunsden
says, the prognosis - from an EU perspective at least - at the moment seems "downbeat, sobering and bleak". Why?

https://twitter.com/jimbrunsden/status/1332249937573240833?s=20

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden Well it goes back to this fundamentally different conception of what both sides are trying to achieve - through which lens or filter you view the idea of this 'level playing field' that the EU has been saying is a precondition of zero-tariff, zero-quota access to its market /6

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden The UK sees LPF commitments as regulatory handcuffs from which it seeks to wriggle free, over time

While the EU sees them as the foundation of free and fair competition and a stable relationship, over time. /7

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden So depending who's specs you're wearing, the so called 'ratchet clause' that keeps the EU and UK trading on a moving baseline of standards is EITHER a bar that turns a slowly tightening regulatory throttle OR the key that opens the door to a fruitful relationship. /8

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden That's why we're stuck, and why this week talk turned to a 'review' or 'sunset' clause that might create space for both sides to walk away for now with their mutually exclusive conceptions of the deal in tact - but that itself quickly becomes a proxy for the same row. /9

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden The UK suggests a 4-year 'sunset' clause where, if they've failed to live up to their (non-binding) commitments on LPF they accept the EU can impose tariffs. That might create a kind of backstop to the 'trust us' argument (which the EU doesn't after UKIM)/10

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden But that will never fly in EU thinking, because Mr Barnier can well see that that is just another UK ruse to 'escape' - to pay a fixed tariff for divergence, over time. Well, the price is too low, if the UK keeps all the other elements of market access in an FTA /11

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden There might be more legs in something more "nuclear" - where the UK can walk away after four years, or however long, but only at the price of another 'no deal'. But then if you're the UK, that feels like more handcuffs. Round and round we go. #Brexit always gets so damn binary/12

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden Is there a way out? Well there is, but both sides seem to think we'll get there by the other folding.

The UK, by running down the clock, thinks the EU will ultimately accept there is a limit how much of a control-freak it can be. It will fudge a deal as it always does/13

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden The EU bets that @BorisJohnson will look at those OBR forecasts and come to his senses and pay the price required for access to the market of 460m people with which the UK does nearly 50 per cent of its trade /14

https://twitter.com/AntonSpisak/status/1331611589796098050?s=20

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden @BorisJohnson Which takes us one step back to the 'original sin' of this negotiation, which is that it is based on a UK vision of 'sovereignty' and 'freedom' that doesn't really exist. The EU is - like it or not - going to exert that gravitational pull on the UK. It's just an economic fact /15

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden @BorisJohnson The government is about to turn the clock back to 1992; swaddle businesses in an extra 200m custom declarations; create a parallel regulatory frame work for chemicals and manufacturers for no obviously good reason - or at least no reason they've bothered to articulate /16

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden @BorisJohnson It remains clearly in both sides interests to do a deal - really it does - but it's hard to get there if your conception of your own side's offensive economic interests (your farming and pharma industry, chemicals and cars) is so warped.

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden @BorisJohnson It is one of the truly remarkable things about Brexit, that such a wrenching change to the UK’s trading arrangements with its nearest neighbours should have taken place with so little cognisance of — or consultation with — those that do the trading. /18

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden @BorisJohnson But we are where we are. There can still be a 'deal'; the pressure will start to tell on both sides, but given the philosophical divide outlined above, it seems to me that, at best, it will be a grinding, unstable equilibrium - or disequilibrium, more accurately. /19

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden @BorisJohnson Whatever the outcome over the next few weeks, it is bad luck for business — and consumers, workers, travellers and everyone else that will be caught in the fallout — that it has apparently been impossible to organise an EU exit in an orderly fashion.

Good weekend all. ENDS

@MichelBarnier @DavidGHFrost @jimbrunsden @BorisJohnson PS...if we get a deal, when do we get a deal? Dunno. UK always consistently more optimistic than EU, which if you're cynical is part of the 'nothing to see here' approach on LPF. I reckon as @Mij_Europe says, fair chance it goes late into December

https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1332293592170237953?s=24

PPS. More of all this every Thursday lunchtime in the @ft #brexit briefing.

https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1331996064958844928

PPS. More of all this every Thursday lunchtime in the @ft #brexit briefing.

https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1331996064958844928