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Simon Usherwood Profile picture
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23 Jun, 8 tweets, 3 min read
Since I've written a lot about #Brexit (and for longer than 5 yrs), I thought I'd share some content that speaks to the bigger picture and that might still be of use now

tl;dr it's gone about as well as I thought/feared

1/
This, from Nov 17, tries to explain how Brexit is an exercise in apportioning costs

blogs.surrey.ac.uk/politics/2017/…

2/
In July 17, I ran through some good practice on negotiating, which still all holds

blogs.surrey.ac.uk/politics/2017/…

3/
August 17 saw me muse on the paradox of the EU being seen as both strong and weak, which still plagues British discourse

blogs.surrey.ac.uk/politics/2017/…

4/
Last September, I considered the Golden Rule aspects of it all...

ucleuropeblog.com/2020/09/23/the…

5/
...which was also reflected in the poor choice of 1980s Millwall as a role model for the UK in negotiations in May 19

ukandeu.ac.uk/the-millwallis…

6/
And finally, a call to think about negotiations as problem-solving, not winning (Aug 18)

ukandeu.ac.uk/the-brexit-neg…

7/
If you want a longer read, try this from Jan 2018

kas.de/c/document_lib…

/end

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More from @Usherwood

Simon Usherwood Profile picture
14 Jun
A quick Monday morning run-down of where the UK is on the Northern Ireland Protocol

tl;dr yes it creates problems, but those are ones of the UK's choosing

1/
This weekend's G7 was very much at the worse end of possible outcomes, with much digging into positions and a degree of opportunity cost to UK on the actual agenda of the meeting



2/
A lot of the annoyance seems to have come from Macron's remarks on NI being apart from the rest of UK. Johnson's response (above) is true, but misses a key part of the picture - he agreed to NI being apart from the rest of UK

3/
Read 12 tweets
Simon Usherwood Profile picture
9 Jun
Today sees the first meeting of the TCA's Partnership Council, as well as the WA's Jt Cte: worth noting their distinct remits, powers and the different dispute settlement mechanisms they have access to
And just so you have them, more info on those dispute settlement mechanisms

In both cases we're still right at the start of these, but they both contain significant scope for penalties for infringement of treaty obligations
And here's a couple of graphics about options on the Protocol

Tl;dr here is that it might be problematic, but it's a lot less problematic than the alternatives
Read 4 tweets
Simon Usherwood Profile picture
8 Jun
Coming back to this, a couple of thoughts about how to get what you want

1/
The general formula is that - ceteris paribus - if you're looking for the other party in an agreement to help you out, you're more likely to get that if you've demonstrated that you've tried to make the agt work

2/
So, in a non-random example, if you agreed a 6 month grace period on chilled meat products accessing the other party and you said you'd use that time to adjust, then if you didn't try to adjust then you're less likely to be cut any slack

3/
Read 7 tweets
Simon Usherwood Profile picture
8 Jun
So what might a less 'purist' approach look like?

Maybe letting UK say it wanted 6 mths to make the necessary changes to chilled meats perhaps? And then agreeing to that?

Something on those lines, I'd imagine
Oh

as @pholmes8 rightly notes, the extension was written by the UK as a unilateral statement, so can't even blame this on haggling over text

Read 5 tweets
Simon Usherwood Profile picture
28 May
Some thoughts on the crossover between the Swiss and UK relations with the EU

Tl;dr you can't avoid having a relationship, so finding a modus vivendi makes sense

1/
Swiss relations with EU look messy mainly because of failure to convert historic relations at time of EEA (early 1990s): switch from many, narrow, separate agts to a single framework ran into domestic CH opposition

Far enough

2/
Subsequent history has been about trying to work that model work, with varying levels of success

Yes, lots of upgrades over time, but also assorted setbacks

3/
Read 12 tweets
Simon Usherwood Profile picture
12 May
There are only 3 options here:
- try to make the NIP work
- try to negotiate an alternative
- try to walk away from any negotiated system

All are very problematic for the UK (and only a bit less so for the EU)

1/
Making NIP work as it stands needs UK to either make big advances on implementation, or to fall back on dispute settlement mechanisms to test whether its more 'flexible' interpretation is viable (spoiler: almost certainly not)

2/
Finding an alternative sounds great, but it's not as if no one has been looking for such a thing for several years now.

NIP isn't great, but that doesn't mean it's not the least worst option.

And that's even before Q of whether either side want more negotiating fun

3/
Read 5 tweets

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