Thread by @pmdfoster

🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🚛🥓🍗🦐🍣🚛🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨So. As EU mulls legal sanctions v U.K. over handling of Northern Ireland Protocol today, biz groups that have already lost millions from #brexit urge @DavidGHFrost to cool the “madman” strategy - stay with me. /1
on.ft.com/3qu9806

@DavidGHFrost This isn't a black and white story, since mistakes have been committed by both sides in the handling of the NI Protocol, but last week's decision to unilaterally extend grace periods by Frost has got right up EU noses - even IF, as UK protests, @michaelgove was planning same /2

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove The problem here is that Frost has 'form' with the EU. Back in 2019 and in 2020 in negotiations on the Protocol and the TCA, he was often seen as deliberately confrontational - part of the Vote Leave 'madman' strategy to get a decent deal. /3

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove So that means that the EU, frankly, reads the worst possible intentions into every Frost move (when Gove and Sefcovic) had a working relationship.

So the fact that Frost did not notify @MarosSefcovic about the unilateral move has put noses out of joint in Brussels/capitals/4

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic The UK protests that the EU was being too slow to move to avoid shortages and extend grace period on requiring full export health documentation - and was supported by NI biz groups leaders like @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI - and so had no choice but to move /5

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI But the manner of the move - ignoring @simoncoveney entreaties, not notifying Sefcovic - and then following it up with an OpEd in Sunday Telegraph that was headlined as an warning to EU to "stop sulking" just questions whether UK really does want to implement Protocol /6

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney The EU says it does understand the need for flexibility (though the Brits haven't seen much) but equally, as one EU diplomat says, EU countries "are sovereign as well and do not want to be stage hands in the narrative Frosts spins domestically". Hence the coming legal action /7

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney The real problem here is trust - the EU doesn't trust that the UK intends to implement the Protocol and it doesn't want temporary easements (on say allowing sausages to enter NI unfrozen) to become permanent solutions. So its laying down a marker /8

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney The UK argument that the risk to the single market is currently zero (since UK remains de facto aligned with EU rules, even if not legally) doesn't was in Brussels, where the question is what happens if/when UK does diverge and broken system is in place /9

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney All of this brouhaha is deeply unsettling to UK businesses who want practical solutions and are worried that their interests are going to become pawns in a perpetual game of Borisian Brussels-baiting to obscure the costs of the new trading arrangements./10

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney Hence the calls for the government to cool it from people like @scotfoodjames who represents industries like Scottish salmon that calculated they last £11m in first two months of trading.

"We face a relationship choice, either collaboration or disintegration." he says /11

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames Or @ColdChainShane who represents perishable products industry.

“Adopting a ‘madman’ negotiating strategy might be great politics, but it’s terrible for food supply chains. The next few months are make or break for the food industry." he says. /12

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane The next couple of months are indeed key - the UK starts its own border controls (or maybe doesn't if it decides to soft-pedal the border, as many trade groups are led to believe they will) + the EU is introducing new layers of complexity on food products from 3rd countries/13

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane And as Richard Burnett @RHARichardB says, if the UK does soft-pedal it's border in April (giving EU exporters continued free pass to disadvantage of UK exporters to EU) it hardly sits with the tough-talking strategy /14

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane @RHARichardB As he puts it: “It doesn’t make sense Frost taking a verbal hardline with Brussels, and then taking a light-touch approach to enforcing the new UK border — unless you’ve got good and trusting dialogue between the two parties, which clearly we haven’t." /15

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane @RHARichardB The frustrating part of this is that the UK does have a reasonable case to make on the EU handling of the Protocol - see threads passim, but the failure to engage at the Joint Cmme meeting of Feb 24 was a mistake in my view/16

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane @RHARichardB Some EU member states (understandably riled, perhaps) have constrained the Commission latitude and, in seeking to enforce the principle of the Protocol, risk testing it to destruction (which I still don't believe UK gov really wants) /17

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane @RHARichardB But the Frost actions - snubbing Sefcovic, grandstanding OpEds - just inflames everything when, done differently, the UK could even have taken the higher ground, reminding the EU of its joint commitment to Northern Ireland's fragile politics /18

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane @RHARichardB We'll see now how hard the EU wants to push the legal options.

It will could it's point of principle but - as last time with Internal Market Bill - use the legal process to create space to arrive at mutually agreeable fixes.

Or it could push harder and faster /19

@DavidGHFrost @michaelgove @MarosSefcovic @MichaelAodhan @ManufacturingNI @simoncoveney @scotfoodjames @ColdChainShane @RHARichardB Needless to add, there is a huge amount at stake - and not just in Northern Ireland.

The mixing of real-world UK trade interests (45% of which is with EU) with previously cost-free Brussels-bashing instincts risks only deepening the costs of Brexit. Time for calm. ENDS