This is basically preparing the ground for Frost blaming everyone else after he experiences the same level of loyalty from Boris Johnson that Dominic Cummings managed to experience
Where Lord Frost blames everyone else for the agreement he negotiated pt. 94
The main goal here from Frost seems to be to largely shift blame for the position of weakness the UK government finds itself in over the Northern Ireland Protocol on to his predecessors under Theresa May. The blame-shifting is the point, the proposals that follow an afterthought
It's either Theresa May's fault, or the UK Parliament's fault, Ireland's fault or the EU's fault.

How Lord Frost expects to be taken more seriously after this beats me
Government that refused to extend transition period that could have given it more time to negotiate stable outcomes expresses frustration at not having enough time to negotiate stable outcomes
Lord Frost shocked at predictable things that were predicted.

The blame-shifting is the point. The proposals that follow are an afterthought.

This section reads like the text you prepare to defend your record at a parliamentary inquiry after you've been sacked
If this document was directed towards the EU to prod it into flexibility over the Protocol, then it would have started here to signal trustworthiness.

Instead it starts with a whiny section directed to its main audience, a shrinking number of Tory MPs still interested in Brexit
The risk with this emphasis is entrenching the island of Ireland as borderless space leads to integration of an all-island economy anyway. That means a key consequence of the GFA that plays out under any protocol deal can be interpreted as a strategic threat by UK governments
Again, this is not what you say if you are trying to convince the EU to become more flexible. This is what you say when you're trying to justify yourself to a domestic UK audience
The lesson from that fiasco was that Dublin shares interests with the UK, can work with it to head off problems and if relations are good can often be the UK's best friend in the EU. Not sure those lessons have been internalised in London
Again setting up the deeper integration of an all-island economy between Ireland and NI as a strategic threat to UK interests. This may be viewed as a short term tactic by Frost's team, but is not helpful in terms of managing NI Unionist expectations
Tying up the fate of the UK government's negotiating position to the electoral trajectory of the DUP seems unwise
Agree that this is a central issue. But the wider questions about why the UK government signed on to an agreement against Unionist objections are not dealt with
Article 16 is mentioned so often at this point that there is a bit of an old man yells at cloud feeling around these threats
"No it's not a banana, it's a gun really, but I'll only pull the trigger later"
These passages are surreal if you think of how the UK government is still delaying import checks on goods from the EU at the English border because it's afraid of disrupting the kind of access to EU goods that English voters consider normal
EU negotiators should be given an award for not going full Avakov on Frost if this is what his tone is during meetings
This is a David Brentism a certain kind of manager thinks looks strong but just signals that he can be rolled
Predictable thing that was predicted surprises UK government
"let's propose that thing they've rejected over and over again. Maybe that will work this time"
If this was 2017 and the UK government had worked to sustain a strong level of EU trust, hey maybe this could even have been agreed by spring 2018.

Would have been a great timeline
So my pet theory is that the UK government will try to camouflage an eventual capitulation over SPS agreements through a proposal presented by Johnson where he claims he has triumphed over the EU by forcing it to sign a Swiss-style SPS Agreement
Yes sensible. So presumably the UK government will do everything it can to build the trust with Brussels and Dublin to make this possible
Laughs in Ukrainian.

And again if this was really about a message towards the EU rather than UK domestic actors, there would have been two or three pages of detail on enforcement, rather than this brief burp of a paragraph
Predictable thing predicted etc etc
UK government creates self-inflicted problem and demands solution from EU
File under stuff that sounds easy on powerpoint
Very specific medicines maybe. All medicines and you wander into smuggling problems very fast. So no.
Looking at this passage again, you really get the sense that Frost has not consulted with anyone involved in law enforcement
Laughs some more in Ukrainian
Because that has always put off smuggling in the past?
5 years into this and the UK government is still in denial about how the EU system interacts with its neighbours
Weaker state demands stronger state adjust its strategic approach in weaker state's interests.
Jeez, what a terrible deal. What kind of UK government would fail to realise that this is how the EU manages its neighbourhood and sign something like this?
Nowhere in these proposals are there concrete frameworks set out for an enhanced role for Stormont to ensure that NI politicians and voters have the final say in shaping their own fate
UK government demands the right to avoid making final decisions.

I suspect that tells us a lot about whether the UK government will delay import checks again on England's border with the EU in October
TLDR "it's not my fault. Blame them"

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Alexander Clarkson

Alexander Clarkson Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @APHClarkson

21 Jul
The Protocol placed a trade border between the rest of the UK and Northern Ireland. That was agreed and sealed in October 2019. You now have the leading political correspondent of the BBC claiming that in the "tradition of international deals" something was punted when it was not
How Kuensberg unquestioningly relays claims by Cummings that are factually incorrect shows how far parts of the UK political/media elite still don't get the difference in process between EU member states and process between the EU and neighbouring states
Never mind the EU and the UK's other international partners, what does it say to voters and leaders in Scotland, NI and Wales if the UK's central political and media elites assume that agreements that they at one point claim are cast iron are open to revision a moment later?
Read 7 tweets
21 Jul
An empty building is not a hospital. It's a warehouse for medical equipment
kingsfund.org.uk/projects/posit…
Not sure lack of investment in NHS staff is really a winner in the Red Wall seats that GB News claims to be a channel for
Claiming to strengthen the NHS while not keeping pay at levels that try to prevent staff shortages getting worse is a bit like claiming Global Britain will be a bigger player on the world stage while cutting the size of the military further and slashing overseas development aid.
Read 5 tweets
21 Jul
The price Russia and Germany should have to pay for the completion of North Stream 2 is the full integration of Ukraine into the EU's economic and energy systems.

That means a final pathway to full access to the EU's Single Market on the level enjoyed by Norway.
The objections that giving Ukrainians full access to the Single Market's four freedoms will lead to a migration wave are outdated. Through visa-free agreements on travel and the particularities of Poland's labour permit system, the Ukrainian migration wave has been on for years
Rather than engaging in futile blocking moves on a deal between Washington and Berlin, Ukraine and its East European partners should work to ensure that the price Germany has to pay for North Stream 2 to East European EU partners and Kyiv should be as steep as possible
Read 4 tweets
20 Jul
Another proposal for the NI Protocol that operates on assumptions about UK leverage in relation to the EU that proved illusory by 2017
People manoeuvring for the UK side need to stop wasting the EU's time
There is no use in lingering on how it's all unfair when you're on the wrong end of an asymmetry of power and have no more powerful allies willing to help
Read 4 tweets
16 Jul
How the hell is anyone on the Dutch-German border going to even control or pay attention to this in the middle of the largest floods in a century?
We are approaching a point at which structures managing the COVID19 crisis risk becoming completely detached from political or social reality
Right now, neither the Dutch nor German regional or federal police have the personnel to monitor and restrict border movement and handle the largest natural crisis the region has seen in decades at the same time
Read 4 tweets
4 Jul
Once businesses give up on enforcing a measure even if it is in place there is no state power that can ensure it is followed in every venue. You can't post cops at every Tesco. So it is worth asking whether businesses still have the will to enforce compliance in everyday life
The UK debate around public health measures is constructed around binaries of personal responsibility vs state power. It never properly engaged with state capacity for enforcement, how public and business consent is generated and the conditions in which consent might fall apart
You may oppose a measure because it constrains freedoms. But if it gets public consent the state can use finite resources to enforce it

You may want a measure because it makes you feel safe. But if public consent withers the state's finite resources will struggle to enforce it
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(