Jon Worth Profile picture
10 Dec, 10 tweets, 2 min read
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
NO DEAL is not a permanent or even semi permanent state. It would most likely be followed by a deal of some sort, but how that deal (POST NO DEAL DEAL) would look some months from now may differ from *the* DEAL that could be agreed now.

4/10
A CANADA DEAL or a CANADA STYLE DEAL is just about acceptable shorthand for the DEAL that is currently on the table - i.e. it is roughly similar to the deal 🇪🇺 has with 🇨🇦.

5/10
An AUSTRALIA DEAL or an AUSTRALIA STYLE DEAL is a fallacy

🇬🇧 has no overarching agreement with 🇦🇺, neither does 🇪🇺. The term is used by some to make a NO DEAL sound palatable, but given it contains the word 'deal' but as there is no paper to sign it is not a deal.

*avoid*

6/10
SIDE DEAL or PARTIAL DEAL means one or more smaller, narrower agreements than the DEAL & that could be struck between 🇬🇧 & 🇪🇺, presumably to apply after 1st Jan (although theoretically before). Both 🇬🇧 and 🇪🇺 would have to agree to these, and 🇪🇺 has refused them until now.

7/10
CONTINGENCY MEASURES are limited, unilateral, time limited legislative proposals by 🇪🇺 to overcome short term disruption in a NO DEAL scenario. Some parts would only work if 🇬🇧 agreed to them - on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

8/10
There is nothing to stop 🇬🇧 proposing its own CONTINGENCY MEASURES but this has not yet happened.

CONTINGENCY MEASURES (🇪🇺 ones, or theoretical 🇬🇧 ones) are not to be confused with SIDE DEAL or PARTIAL DEAL.

9/10
In short: these terms are not always as straightforward as we might like, but getting them right is important to understand what is going on.

And I'd not want anyone to *not* understand of course.

10/10

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More from @jonworth

10 Dec
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
Read 5 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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