Thread by @Axelisys

👨🏾‍💻 OK. So the @Independent is such a rare thing these days. There are a couple of things to highlight in this article.

Firstly, Rules of Origin generally are a WTO concept not EU concept. The Single Market recognised the UK as equivalent #Thread /1

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

Most of the provision of the UK-EU Partnership Agreement undoes EU rules to 'regress' to WTO rules, before then applying the Free Trade Agreement elements between the two parties. That's the nature of going from Single Market & Customs Union, to a [mere] free trade agreement /2

The affected industry bodies seem to think they can just pick up the trade deal & start negotiations from scratch again. No, that's not how it works. The EU are now not part of the regulatory chain the UK can access, since the UK gave up on the shared competency of membership /3

Unlike UK Parliamentary law, which works on the principle of not binding future electorates, this is a principle that can only apply in the UK. The EU (or anyone else we ever end a deal with) not only doesn't recognise it, but can't! /4

Previously, in the UK, you could just write to your MP, who could raise questions with the shared l competency, through the European Council. You could also write to your MEP, who could raise questions to the European Parliament. Now, neither of these apply /5

Meaning de facto effect of undoing treaties binds future electorates

There is never 3rd party obligation to submit to the UK. They don't follow UK law in their countries. Also, deal limits reviews of provisions by Partnership Council. No less than 2 yrs & at least every 5 /6

The flummoxing thing is this was always the case. It was the case before the referendum 4.5 years ago. There is no 'Undo' on this. Yet most trade bodies had policies of remaining neutral on the question of EU membership. Directly contradicting their responsibility to members /7

This was especially comical with those lobbying government. As they had the remit to do something, but didn't. Comically, FSB & local Chambers included.

So of course, during the 4+ year campaign to rethink or at least verify the deal, remainers & #RemainerNow were right /8

So the trade bodies have very little they can do, as MPs have next to nothing they can do.

Worse: recently the select committees supposed to feed concerns of businesses up through the deal's subcommittees & into the Partnership Council, we're disbanded /9

Meaning there is currently no way to get the change these trade bodies seek. The UK first has to reinstitute a mechanism of interacting with Civil Society on the issues raised, which is an accepted requirement of the deal, before any such proposal can be put. /10

In practice, this all means that the professional trade bodies got this badly wrong. They didn't march, they didn't lobby, they didn't even properly write and they didn't act. So arguably, share responsibility for this, with complete inability to change it now /11

The advice for crossing the channel, through whatever means should basically be:

1. Don't
2. If you must, eat before you set of
3. Go before you go

And yeah. #WeToldYouSo /end