Thread by @syrpis

10 mins in front of the news was enough to drive me to intense frustration.

The Tory party 'line to take' today is that the unbridgeable divide is the result of the failure of the EU to recognise that the UK is an independent sovereign state.

It is nonsense. THREAD. 1/11

Brexit involves the UK making a sovereign decision to leave the EU. And, in January 2020 the UK duly left the EU. 2/11

As a member of the EU, the UK was part of the single market. The single market is a complex web of rules and presumptions which seeks to eliminate trade barriers between the EU member states. 3/11

It relies on the adoption of EU harmonisation legislation (via a tolerably democratic supranational decision-making structure), and on the enforcement of EU rules by national and EU level courts. 4/11

It relies on trust and cooperation between member states, and on institutions at EU (eg the Commission and the CJEU) and the national level which are able to enforce the rules. 5/11

Now... the UK has decided to leave the EU and leave the single market. Different actors are pursuing different agendas. These two arguments are often made. 6/11

First, the 'point' of Brexit is the freedom to diverge from EU standards and rules and the freedom to make our own regulatory choices. 7/11

And second, attempts to enforce any obligations in any deal, especially with reference to EU law, are strongly rejected. As are any common institutions which might have an element of jurisdiction over the UK and its future choices. 8/11

I don't think that anyone is questioning the UK's sovereign right to set its own rules, and to establish its own enforcement mechanisms. 9/11

Instead, the argument is about the consequences, in particular as regards ease of access to the EU's market, of particular exercises of the UK's sovereignty. 10/11

The fundamental misunderstanding it is not about the fact that the UK is sovereign, but instead about the nature of the (sovereign) desire of the EU-27 to protect the single market. 11/11