@afneil They told me that repeatedly... meeting after meeting.

I told them even if they won on that basis, that establishes no positive legacy for why we should stay in EU & build. It offered no future. They didn’t listen. They told me they were going to get it over the line & be done.
@afneil Also, they were utterly wrong with that conjecture.

They told all groups to echo their core message of Brexit = economic destruction- and not to bother with positive “complex” arguments. But from what I could see in all my interactions, people wanted to *understand*...
@afneil ... and we were not providing any explanation of why things were how they were- what was building well, how we’d build the EU science programme, single market, network of global trade deals— where this could all lead if only the UK stepped up and led our continent...
@afneil We were in fact in a leading position. Germany never wanted to lead. France is always too chaotic. Many EU countries looked to the Brits.

There we sat in 2015 - on top of that platform, as gateway to Single Market for Asia, the link-point for US-European relations...
@afneil ... and all we needed to do was 1) re-distribute the wealth we reaped from it to all regions and explain that’s what we were doing and 2) make UK govt decisions at EU level that reflected public will - make that chain from public to policy more direct 3) explain how we lead EU...
@afneil ... but instead, leading Brexiteers claimed we were victims. They said that we, the 5th largest economy in the world, were voiceless, bullied, pushed around by faceless bureaucrats and an invisible “dictator” - encouraged us to get angry, sulk, withdraw...
@afneil ... and now after years of domestic chaos - we have a deal that very visibly shrinks our sovereignty. It pulls back our heft to our own shores and disempowers us in our continent and the world on levels of individuals (FoM), industries (sci, regs) & nation state. That’s #Brexit

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More from @mikegalsworthy

28 Dec
He also in 2017/2018, when challenged on what EU laws he’d scrap, produced a little list from his pocket... the top item being the Clinical Trials Directive.

However, the CTD had already been upgraded to the Clinical Trials Regulation in 2014. That was his top item. / thread
In fact, that revision was led by a British MEP (Dame Glenis Willmott), with huge input from British industry and it was roundly praised for all the positive changes it brought in, including by Cancer Research UK and AllTrials, which had been demanding increased transparency.
If you want to read more on this area, I recommend this article by my colleague Prof @martinmckee from 2016:

theguardian.com/science/politi…
Read 4 tweets
24 Dec
Good article. And so the “who won” spin battle begins.

UK victories are cosmetic, however: “The EU appears to have secured a deal which allows it to retain nearly all of the advantages it derives from its trading relationship with the U.K.”

/thread bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The quote continues: “...while giving it the ability to use regulatory structures to cherry pick among the sectors where the U.K. had previously enjoyed advantages in the trading relationship,”

This is exactly right. EU know the services is the trickier part & retain the levers
So the UK have negotiated based on ECJ, fish and tariffs...

That suits the EU fine. With zero tariffs, that’s to EU advantage as they sell more goods to us.

With services, we sell much more to them- and that is where we have now utterly lost control of dynamics.
Read 4 tweets
2 Dec
Govt trying to give Brexit credit for German vaccine approval under EU law. [Support us: patreon.com/scientistsforeu] pscp.tv/w/cpZNnDFtTUVQ…
Also, note this:

The EMA started a rolling review of preliminary data from Pfizer trials on Oct. 6. The MHRA (UK regulator) launched its own rolling review on Oct. 30 -- and analysed less data than made available to the EMA.

See:

uk.reuters.com/article/us-hea…
And exactly as I was saying...

Thank you, Channel 4. 😎👍

channel4.com/news/factcheck…
Read 4 tweets
1 Dec
Very well-written article.

The most compelling line in here is: "two wrongs don't make a right".

To win the 20% who were No in '14, Remain in '16 & Yes now, there'd need to be a public admission that Brexit was bad, a path back to Europe's family, and Labour to champion Union.
I’m partly posting this to sample the reactions from Scottish colleagues.

I’d find it really hard to tell a Scot that they should go through with Brexit with England, when that goes against their vote and they’ve been allowed no moderation of it.

Also...
How can any Brexiteer have the gall to tell the Scots to stay in a Union - and make that argument utilising all the rationales that they themselves rejected?

It’s a level of sheer hypocrisy that’s asking to be punished.
Read 4 tweets
29 Nov
But I’d be up for a big summer Festival of Fuck Brexit.

Who’s with me? 👨🏼‍🎤💃🏻🕺🏻
DIY style. We’ve got form at this too...
Read 4 tweets
1 Nov
Exactly two weeks ago (Oct 17), I taked with @clivebull on LBC.

I said Tiers weren’t working, there should be a circuit-breaker until mid/end Nov to gather back control. Then you’re in position in Dec for an Xmas plan.

Exactly what Govt now doing... but painfully late. Excerpt:
I mean, it’s pretty obvious. This isn’t exactly Nostradamus stuff.

However, that’s the whole point.

Boris Johnson said “a stitch in time saves nine” then provided no stitch as all the scientific advice and rules of sensible management were screaming for simple foresight here.
So what are the issues now?

Obviously, fix t&t, make it local.

But also we need to clear the backlogs of cancer & other time-critical patients, diagnostic screening etc. These backlogs are a product of covid, not lockdown & we need to get on top of them while there’s a window.
Read 7 tweets

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