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Brigid Laffan Profile picture
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2 Jun, 4 tweets, 3 min read
Border on the island of Ireland was always going to be a central issue in #Brexit fallout not just because of the complexities of SPS & checks but because #Brexit runs counter to the sovereignty practices that emerged from Good Friday Agreement (GFA) @BrigidLaffan
2. GFA evolved from deep re-examination of political structures that evolved from Irish Nationalism & Unionism. Political identities, citizenship & states were refashioned by commitments & institutions of GFA. #Brexit is the opposite. @BrigidLaffan
3. @Number10 @BorisJohnson @DavidGHFrost cannot grasp novelty/innovation & genius that lies behind design. Absolutist concept of sovereignty is incompatible with GFA & Ireland pays a heavy price for English exceptionalism & crude grasp of complex political orders @BrigidLaffan
4. That any European Government would treat the most vulnerable part of its own state with such carelessness beggars belief in 21st century. ‘They know not what they do’ @FCDOGovUK

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More from @BrigidLaffan

Brigid Laffan Profile picture
17 May
My ttakeaways from @DavidGHFrost engagement with HoC committee today. 1. #HMG has discovered the Good Friday Agreement. Mentioned more often today than by the Leave campaign or his political master @BorisJohnson during ref. @BrigidLaffan
2. Frost says that U.K. 100% behind GFA. Anything that undermines it a problem for London. Impact of Protocol more unsettling & stronger than ‘we thought’ would happen. Wow when the dogs in the street knew the potential damage of Brexit for island of Ireland.@BrigidLaffan
3. When asked if temporary SPS alignment would be considered which really would make a difference-@DavidGHFrost says no. Why because of the search for trade agreements-U.K. must be in control. @BrigidLaffan
Read 7 tweets
Brigid Laffan Profile picture
30 Apr
2 observations following a number of academic & policy exchanges on Brexit this week.1. Almost all UK commentators-academic, official & political now argue that EU needs to re-think its approach to third country neighbours-few of them were making case when UK a MS @BrigidLaffan
This call is because reality of 3rd country status begins to bite & however desired by hard Brexiteers, it sits uneasily with almost 50 years of membership. 2. Brexit is seen as the ultimate benchmark for EU by many in U.K., most recently by @GoodwinMJ last night. @BrigidLaffan
What kind of benchmark is Brexit? U.K. is 1 medium sized state while EU remains dominant economic power in Europe. All neighbours have to adjust to its presence not the other way around & all European third countries benefit from the public goods supplied by EU. @BrigidLaffan
Read 5 tweets
Brigid Laffan Profile picture
7 Apr
Lots of discussion in my timeline on the imbalanced nature of N.Irl Protocol-a nationalist solution & a weakness of British statecraft according to @TomMcTague & a miscalculation re. protection of single market @SirSocks @BrigidLaffan
1. No appreciation of the consequences of U.K. decision to leave EU for island of Ireland. Not a live issue in the ref campaign & UK negotiators did not fully grasp the complexity of issues until well after ref. @BrigidLaffan
2. Theresa Villiers when still SOS for N. irl. Week after ref says ‘we can keep a border that is as open & free-flowing as it is today’ -she was correct but her idea of how that could be achieved was way off @DefraGovUK @BrigidLaffan
Read 10 tweets
Brigid Laffan Profile picture
11 Feb
This is the second time in one week that I have to engage with something written by a British academic on their assessment of Brexit & Ireland. In this case @HelenHet20 in @NewStatesman 🧵
1. @HelenHet20 Europe’s vaccine crisis has revealed the true nature of the EU?? Ireland has been a member state since 1973, has had more refs on EU topics than any other country & thus its political & administrative elite knows & understands EU @BrigidLaffan
2. Said elite & electorate never idealised EU-small states are acutely aware of limits of their power & deploy capacity with care-the Swedes coined the term smart states. Small states understand they have to be smart. @BrigidLaffan
Read 11 tweets
Brigid Laffan Profile picture
6 Feb
Not often I read something @Telegraph that I feel has to be taken on but Vernon Bogdanor’s opinion today is one such piece. Bogdanor is one of the leading scholars of the British Constitution & has an in-depth knowledge of Irish history so there are no excuses @KingsCollegeLon
1. His assertion that the Northern Ireland Protocol has fallen at the first whiff of grapeshot is evidence of a scholar rushing to judgement just 4 weeks into the implementation of a complex set of legal provisions @BrigidLaffan
2. He rightly identifies problems the Protocol causes for GB-Northern Ireland economic exchange but argues that any flexibility EU would agree to would not solve the problem because the problem for him is constitutional. For him the Protocol cannot work @BrigidLaffan
Read 12 tweets
Brigid Laffan Profile picture
23 Jan
Am prompted to do this 🧵 following @BEERG sharing of Gove 19 April’16 speech, @kevinhorourke observation on interests & ideas & @CER_Grant observation that historians will ponder the weakness of economic interests in Brexit negs at @InstituteGC yesterday @BrigidLaffan
1. Seems to me that @BorisJohnson has delivered on the @michaelgove 2016 speech in one important sense-not the sunny uplands of Brexit but the working out of what Brexit was to this clique who drove the Leave campaign @BrigidLaffan
2. That was a total rejection of the #EU model of internationalisation, its governance regimes, institutions, regulatory frameworks, its ideals & the political, economic & legal order it represents. @BrigidLaffan
Read 9 tweets

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