Jon Worth Profile picture
10 Dec, 5 tweets, 1 min read
There's something personally psychologically weird about this morning

I can - logically - see no way to a Deal by 31 December now

But at the back of my brain a kind of "what if?" keeps nagging at me
It's like what supporting a football team about to be relegated must be like.

You know a result in some other game has to end 17-0 for your team to be saved, and the team that needs to win 17-0 has a waterlogged pitch and its main striker injured...
... but until that result comes in you cannot really, completely and fully process what is happening
That's what makes this delay so corrosive

And I don't even have to make any decision really. Which way this ends up going has no direct impact on my life or work. I'm lucky

Imagine if that were not so. Hell I'd be a wreck
Anyway, not withstanding the nagging in the back of my mind, & conscious that it has no direct impact on me, from now on all I will say, do and write is based on there being No Deal on 1 January...

And meantime: solidarity coping with this if you likewise are struggling!

/ends

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More from @jonworth

10 Dec
I see some well known people - including the 🇬🇧 Foreign Secretary and the BBC's Political Editor - are struggling a bit with their #Brexit terminology today

So here's a terminology guide that is as simple as possible.

1/10
DEAL means there is a piece of paper (or, to be precise, more like 600 pages) that both 🇬🇧 and 🇪🇺 agree and sign, and is OKed by the institutions on both sides, by 31st December.

Were this agreed it would be the basis for 🇬🇧-🇪🇺 relations medium term.

2/10
NO DEAL means there is no piece of paper agreed and signed by 🇬🇧 and 🇪🇺 by 31st December.

Unlike a DEAL, we do not know how long this NO DEAL (or perhaps better NO DEAL PERIOD) would last. Weeks? Months?

3/10
Read 10 tweets
10 Dec
I see London think tank Brexit Twitter’s line is “deadlines have come and gone, so 🤷‍♂️”

Sunday may indeed not be a solid deadline, but yesterday’s 🍽 changed a few things
First, a meeting was meant to solve what 2x 📞 between vdL and Johnson hadn’t. It didn’t. Differences remain.

Second, at each vdL-Johnson 📞 there was a commitment to speak again. This time there isn’t. It’s back to Barnier-Frost who’ve been trying for months.
Third, were something to emerge Sunday there’s no time for the EP to ratify it. Sunday might not be a deadline as such, but it loses 4 days more.

Fourth, the Commission has now triggered No Deal contingency.
Read 4 tweets
9 Dec
And also being good at explaining complex stuff means you know your limits, and know who to ask when you struggle.
Here follows a list of people who've helped me in the past couple of weeks. I don't agree with all of them, all the time, but you should follow *all* of them - because above all they have the right *attitude* to solving complex problems!
Read 9 tweets
8 Dec
⏰ When is Johnson going to meet von der Leyen?

Now, 22h after their 📞 concluded, we still don't know

If it's *before*, *during* or *after* the European Council later this week can have a major impact on the outcome - explained in a new blog post

jonworth.eu/when-is-johnso…
If it's *before*, there's the danger that both sides have too big a gap to bridge - and Johnson has to return to London outwitted by a Brussels bureaucrat
If it's *after*, the UK thinks it might have gained an advantage by running the clock down further, but with time already really short that's a very dangerous game
Read 5 tweets
8 Dec
This being Brexit, no sooner has one hurdle been overcome, so the next rears its head

*WHEN* is the vdL-Johnson meeting going to happen?

Currently we don't know
There are two, theoretically three, options

Wednesday (or Thursday morning) makes most logical sense - it would allow vdL and Johnson to seal a deal, and then the European Council Thursday afternoon can agree it

Friday afternoon (or Saturday) I suppose is an option as fallback
The theoretical option - and I presume the one Johnson is pushing for and hence why we do not know the schedule yet - is he's in Brussels when the European Council happens, and he can even talk direct to the Heads of State and Government there
Read 6 tweets
8 Dec
A quick thread about night trains

The transport ministers from 🇩🇪🇦🇹🇫🇷🇨🇭, and the CEOs of the state-owned 🚅 operators in each (DB, ÖBB, SNCF, SBB), held a press conference about night trains today...

This slide summarises what they'd agreed
Don't get me wrong: night trains are *good*, and the trains on these routes will be ÖBB NightJet services, and ÖBB runs the best night trains there are in Europe.

I personally will be very happy to take these trains.
But so much for the good news.

Most of these routes have *already* been announced (Zürich to BCN, Rome, Amsterdam) - see presse.oebb.at/de/presseinfor…

Or have been even trialled (Vienna-Brussels) - see traintracks.eu/nachtzug-brues…
Read 9 tweets

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