I fear I profoundly disagree with Andrew in this regard. Leaving for the sake of leaving as @iainmartin1 expresses here is entirely legitimate - and we would be better of if people had been frank and open about this. Let me explain this point of view (thread)
@iainmartin1 But I do not want to explain this in terms of Brexit, but in terms of Switzerland (yes, I did that once years ago, but it‘s worthwhile to recall that). So here we go: Switzerland is a great country. Richer than we are. And many would say more democratic than many /2
However, I do not want to be part of Switzerland. Personally I do not get the Swiss type of democracy, I cannot emotionally relate to the magic formula at all and would not call Switzerland more democratic. But it‘s the Swiss way and that‘s fine with me from the outside. /3
Much in the same way it is legitimate to say you do not want to be part of the EU. You cannot relate to that specific form of democracy. (EU law, of course, explicitly provides for that choice) /4
IF Brexit had happened along this line that we do not want to take part in the EU, because this is too much supranationalism for us. We do not claim it is not democratic, nothing wrong with anything, just not our choice, we would be better off now. Why?
Because right now we could, free from supranationalism, do what the UK used to be very good at: evaluate what is good for the country, what is not and act accordingly based on that information.
We could say that there is no appetite at the moment to diverge from SPS rules, hence we can align, but with a 1-year termination clause, reducing trade friction (and we can get out if we are not happy with alignment).
Instead, we are locked in a mortal exercise of pretending that we get enormous benefits from anything that smells different. That we will become part of North America. That we will become world leaders in everything. And we categorically cannot work with anything continental.
(And yes, I do realise that there‘s a reason the Brexit campaign wasn‘t run along those lines. The identity / too much supranationalism crowd was not large enough - and so economic claims were made and political claims were made that landed us where we are today)

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More from @hhesterm

22 Sep
Quick note on joining USMCA: there's no accession clause that I know of. So it would require negotiations with the US, Mexico and Canada. /1
An accession clause would regulate accession, but the parties to a treaty are free to change it anyway. /2
I assume the idea is that acceding to an existing treaty would be easier because there are terms already. However, it is not clear WE like those term. Nor that the others like them for us. A reminder: the UK economy is roughly as large as the Canadian and Mexican combined.
Read 5 tweets
18 Sep
A Spiegel report explains why France is so angry: France thinks it has been intentionally misled for months. 15 days ago the French and Australian defence and foreign ministers stressed jointly the importance of the French sub deal in a press release /1
Le Monde reported that after rumours emerged French diplomats tried to get a hold of someone on the US side since the beginning of the week but could only speak with the assistant nat sec adviser of the us Wednesday afternoon, after they received notice on Wednesday morning. /2
Read 6 tweets
14 Sep
OK. I deleted my original tweet on this, because nobody wants to hear "listen to experts" too often. But yes, the consolidated voice of experts - and an open offer from the EU was: "let's extend the transition, we cannot be ready because of Covid". What happened then? /1
HMG said we would be ready. The result? Instead of trade barriers hitting exports and imports equally, UK exports are now subject to barriers, imports are not (yet). But it's worse than that. /2
The transition extension under the withdrawal agreement contained a rather long period of notice. To enable everyone to plan ahead. Instead, we now punish those who actually DID plan ahead. Will they do so again next time?
Read 4 tweets
1 Sep
I fear it is time for some thoughts on intellectual brilliance and its role (particularly in the UK). It will have references to Musk, the PM… so bear with me… (thread)
It is no secret that pop culture pretty much anywhere is obsessed with the idea of the supersmart. People with abilities ‘normal’ humans cannot fathom. Think Good Will Hunting or look at Einstein or Hawkins in pop culture. /2
There is something comforting in the thought: I cannot solve global warming, but hey - those supergeniuses will. The government seems a mess - but they are so smart, so the mess is part of a plan (the latter has broken down a bit, I fear) /3
Read 11 tweets
27 Aug
A fundamental lack of understanding of the EU runs through part of UK thought. Rather than tell us anything about @MichelBarnier ’s candidacy or France, this tweet illustrates the problem (thread)
The EU is a multilevel system of governance, a federal system - if you adopt a very broad definition of such a system.
The UK also is a multilevel system, but of a fundamentally different nature. Here’s the key difference…
Read 13 tweets
19 Aug
The Trump-Taliban agreement is an astonishing document. Trump apparently trusts the Taliban entirely. At the very least, this document disqualifies Republicans from ever criticizing the Iran deal against, which is rocksolid compared to this agreement. 2017-2021.state.gov/wp-content/upl…
A question to @FCDOGovUK and @AuswaertigesAmt : the MoU (my legal term, not Trump's) promises withdrawal of the allies to some extent. Something that factually, of course, was in the power of the US. Were we, as allies, consulted?
Here's what the press found out at the time
Read 5 tweets

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