At today's Future Relationship with the European Union Committee - we're hearing from @CSBarnard24 that the deal has a slightly "alice in wonderland quality" about it - nothing really appears quite as it first looks. If you compare to what we had until 1 Jan, it falls short. 1/
For example, there's a statement that the dispute resolution mechanisms doesn’t apply, but if you plough on until the end you see that some chunks of the DSM are actually incorporated over non-regression provisions. @CSBarnard24 2/
From @SamuelMarcLowe: "the premise of this agreement [is] to remove tariffs & do v little to remove barriers to trade and services. If you’re prioritising the economic status quo and economic integration with Europe then of course this deal is going to disappoint you." 3/
"This deal is actually very unstable", says @CSBarnard24. "One of the problems is that this constant contestation of the deal creates quite a lot of difficulties for businesses." 4/
"If you’re a car manufacturer that wants to invest in a new plant, you don’t know whether tariffs are going to be imposed either because the deal is brought to an end or due to potential govt retaliation - this is the main concern of this deal." @CSBarnard24 5/
From @RaoulRuparel: "There are lots of parts where we don’t know yet what they mean until they’re put in place - a ‘grey area’, such as parts of LPF in terms of non-regression. How is that going to be defined? These sorts of things are up in the air until they’re tested." 6/
More on the deal's instability from @CSBarnard24: "There are so many ways that this trade agreement can be brought to an end by either party. We can terminate the agreement on 1y notice. Equally, the deal is also something to review in 5y and there will be a vote in NI in 4y." 7/
From @RaoulRuparel "Labour law & social employment law likely to be biggest areas that could become an issue. Working time came 10y ago and has been evolving. It will take time to emerge, not a big bang issue but something that happens overtime until we reach a tipping point." 8/
Disagreement with @pritipatel that the UK will be safer. @CSBarnard24 says "UK instrumental in setting up all of these mechanisms when it was a member of the EU and the fact is a number of them have been turned off and we’ve been refused access to them." 9/
Of particular concern is the loss of access to the Schengen Information System (SIS) "which we previously used 600million times a year" @CSBarnard24 10/

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More from @BestForBritain

6 Jan
In today's Future Relationship with the EU Committee, the future of financial services was of key concern. From @SamuelMarcLowe: "My view earlier in the year was that if there was a deal it would increase the likelihood of financial services equivalence being granted..." 1/
"But that doesn’t seem to be the case. I believe the EU will grant [equivalence] in areas where it is beneficial for it to, but otherwise it's not in the mood to grant access to the UK above what it usually grants to 3rd countries." @SamuelMarcLowe 2/
"My view is that in the long run the EU’s aim is to have all customer-facing financial operations targeted towards EU customers to be based in the EU. This is going to be a slow leakage of economic activity that would otherwise take place in the UK." @SamuelMarcLowe 3/
Read 4 tweets
31 Dec 20
⭐️ What We Learned ⭐️

1: 2020, a thread. Like everyone, B4B faced countless curve-balls in 2020. Here are some things we learned, that helped us increase our influence in the toughest year we have lived through /
2: Act quickly: As Covid fears grew, we had a contingency plan ready by March 2, long before lockdown was a threat. By March 12, work from home was a thing, and on March 15 we closed the office completely /
3: Put the team first: In a crisis, you need the team more than ever. We got our staff from overseas back home early, trialled work-from-home early, put health (inc mental health) and working policies in place early, so everyone was clear what was happening /
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30 Dec 20
MPs are now debating the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill.

You can see what's happening as if you were in the House of Commons using the new annunciator website: now.parliament.uk

(We appreciate this is possibly for political geeks only)
SNP amendment defeated ayes 60 noes 362
The House of Commons has approved the programme motion for the EU (Future Relationship) bill - the debate will conclude at 2:30pm
Read 5 tweets
29 Dec 20
Our major new analysis of the EU-UK trade deal highlights ten areas that must be addressed urgently to deal with non-tariff trade barriers looming come January 1st. bestforbritain.org/2020tradereport
Although the Johnson deal is better than a WTO arrangement, it will still result in ‘considerably higher barriers’ to trade.
@DavidHenigUK identifies areas of concern ranging from regulatory challenges and data issues to membership of the Erasmus scheme and climate change.
Read 16 tweets
21 Dec 20
An extension to the current transition arrangements can be achieved by agreement w/ EU or as part of a phased deal implementation. Whatever the mechanism (& whether it's called extension, an implementation period or a deferment) we need extra time. Here's how that could work👇1/8
Firstly, the govt gave up our automatic right to an extension in June - & offering this is beyond Barnier’s remit - so it’d need to be signed off by the EU27 & wld need a legal opinion from European Court of Justice. 2/8
Secondly, the EU uses a legal basis for every treaty it strikes. For the current withdrawal agreement & transition period (which started when we left on 31 Jan 2020), the EU used Article 50. 3/8
Read 8 tweets
21 Dec 20
Our new polling finds that voters overwhelmingly want an extension to the transition period. Will @BorisJohnson take note?
bestforbritain.org/new_poll_warni…
Polling from Best for Britain shows extension has more than 2-to-1 backing. With Covid and Brexit double whammy getting worse, voters 'know UK is out of time'.
Only 18 per cent of voters back a no-deal outcome. Among Labour and Lib Dem supporters, that figure is a mere 4 per cent. Even among Leave voters, more want an agreement than favour no deal.
Read 4 tweets

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