Brexiters & their backers have minimal capacity to bring about EU apocalypse.
Yet Brexit’s failure, as a supposed strategic project for boosting the UK’s geopolitical & economic position, is guaranteed & starkly visible if the EU continues. /2.
Which explains much of the prevalent, increasingly shrill, emotionally needy anti-EU rhetoric. And curious features of Brexit which appear consciously to price in abject failure. /3.
Look, I know it’s too much to ask, in some cases at least, that political candidates have a passing familiarity with history or major foreign languages. But, with all due respect, you’d think someone who’s had as many opportunities in life as @LozzaFox would. But no ... a🧵/1.
Mr Fox’s call for freedom translates well into German. A cynic might say he’s aware of this history & has gone ahead in spite - or even because - of it. I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’ll assume ignorance. /2.
Ah, you object, but that was about “freeing” a country from its shackles, prohibitions & evil leaders. Not a capital city. A different point, surely?
In the short term, there’s no choice but strain all of @BorisJohnson’s sinews to ensure the best possible relationship with the EU & the smoothest possible functioning of the NIP. /2.
But we shouldn’t imagine that tinkering, including the major step of an SPS (Sanitary & Phytosanitary) agreement with the EU - if that’s available, given UK sovereigntism & EU “cherry picking” concerns - can result in anything other than a dangerously unstable arrangement. /3.
A brief history of the last 70 years of 🇩🇪 - 🇬🇧 relations. Short 🧵/1.
Many Germans, including much of the diplomatic establishment, felt like this about 🇬🇧. Often despite considerable provocation, especially in the English tabloids. /2.
Some, usually only in private, but then quite vehemently, had a different perspective on 🇬🇧.
But still, with 🇺🇸 in charge, even those 🇩🇪 sceptics felt able to work extremely closely with 🇬🇧. /3.
(a) following UK, German & wider EU reporting today is genuinely terrifying. Unless the UK can find a way to reintegrate itself into one of the two mission critical components of the Euro-Atlantic alliance - the EU - & the EU to accept it, .../2.
... we’re in serious trouble.
This isn’t about Bridlington Bangers to Belfast, or other such trivialising tropes used by some UK ministers.
And, if I were @SecBlinken’s chief of staff, I’d have this dossier, with options for US intervention, on his desk today; /3.