This (by a list of authors including @cjbickerton @JamesHeartfield @thephilippics) contains an extraordinarily poor section on subsidy control under the TCA. thefullbrexit.com/uk-eu-deal
The authors appear to have read my analysis of it eurelationslaw.com/blog/the-subsi… (because they link to it). But they don’t seem to have understood it at all - and the quote attributed to me is simply incorrect.
The authors don’t appear to have any understanding of what EU State aid rules actually are. This, they seem to think that this is all new.
(Note to authors: look up “services of general economic interest” in a good State aid law text book. You might be surprised.)
This is also apparently all new. (Note to authors: look up the definition of “undertaking” in an EU competition law text book.)
Again, note to authors: read a good State aid law text book if you think any of this is new.
As for this peculiar passage, the authors note the fact that UK courts have power to police and enforce the subsidy rules (I’ll blog on the very peculiar way that that has been done later) but conclude in can be done in a “permissive” way.
The authority for that claim is supposed to be me (though I am sneeringly referred to as an “arch remained” - no doubt a precise academic term in some circles).
But the quote attributed to me is a *howling* misquote. What I actually said was this.
What I said was “the recently-made statutory instrument removing the State aid rules from retained EU law could simply and quietly be revoked.”
That is turned - by a classic of selective and misleading quotation, by leaving out all the words up to and including “removing” - into “the State aid rules from retained EU law could simply and quietly be revoked.”
Some of the apparent authors of this shoddy piece of work have academic tenure at respected universities. I expect that passage (at least) to be corrected, in accordance with normal academic standards.
“arch remainer”
That means in particular you, @cjbickerton, @thephilippics, Dr Lee Jones and @C_Lapavitsas.

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More from @GeorgePeretzQC

1 Jan
Problems with that. 1. There is no public appetite for divergent regulation. 2. Both keeping trade going with NI and business pressure point away from divergence. 3. Economic gravity. 4. Need for framework for mobility, security is rather determined by being surrounded by the EU.
5. Scotland.
Like Canada or Switzerland, a close relationship with the elephant next door - and to a large extent on the elephant’s terms - isn’t optional.
Read 4 tweets
1 Jan
While on the topic of Lexit pieces that go off piste when it gets to the detail, some particularly strange passages from Larry Elliot’s piece in the Guardian. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Discuss what this is supposed to mean as a claim about the real world, with particular reference to the word “reputation” (and to the fact that many countries in the EU don’t have that “reputation” - let alone the reality).
What are the economic data behind this claim?
Read 5 tweets
28 Dec 20
This is the promised blog post on the subsidy control provisions of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
TLDR (though do read). The subsidy control provisions commit the UK to a robust subsidy control regime that is enforceable in court and has an independent authority.
The key concepts of the regime (eg what counts as a subsidy, application to tax measures, principles for clearing or prohibiting subsidies) are very familiar to State aid lawyers, though the State aid terminology is deliberately avoided.
Read 9 tweets
22 Dec 20
This rather silly comment on my letter to the Sunday Times (we aren’t in 2016 any more: move on) is however interesting.
The point of my short letter was simply that all significant trade agreements are about trade-offs: accepting limits on what you can do in return for limiting others’ ability to do things that harm your economy or limit your people’s opportunities.
Talk about “sovereignty” (or, in Lee’s case, erecting the “ever closer union” straw man) is usually designed to hide these trade-offs.
Read 6 tweets
19 Dec 20
I don’t think that it’s sustainable for the EU to say (if that’s what it is saying) that COVID subsidies *granted by the EU* don’t fall under the subsidy control provisions of the UK FTA while equivalent UK subsidies do.
I don’t follow the “it would require a change in the Treaties” line: the EU is competent to enter into trade agreements that impose international obligations on it not to exercise Treaty powers in certain ways. Eg GATT.
Nor do I understand the “we can’t allow the UK to block us” line. All that is being proposed is that the UK could impose tariffs (subject to any arbitration/conciliation) mechanism if it objects to what the EU is doing.
Read 7 tweets
16 Dec 20
One question that arises from this: should Attorneys General do court advocacy at all?
As @BarristerSecret points out, the current Attorney General’s outing on this occasion does not appear to have been an unmixed triumph of advocacy.
About 100 years ago, Attorneys General frequently appeared in big criminal trials - and was obliged to prosecute all poisoning cases personally. He (always he, of course) would also represent the government in important civil cases.
Read 15 tweets

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