Thread by @pmdfoster

Three observations on today's @Policy_Exchange paper on the NI Protocol, with a foreword by Lord Frost @DavidGHFrost -- which tries to justify why UK govt -- having signed up to this solution -- now wants to re-write it. And what that tells us. /1

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@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost First. This is part of ongoing pitch-rolling exercise to justify the re-write which started in the July Command paper (link below)...but actually is a revival of old (and lost) arguments that date back to Frost/PX selling a tech border NI-RoI /2

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@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost And Policy Exchange (and Frost himself) have always pushed that idea...see it's paper Getting Over the Line (link below) which accepted that a tech border N-S might cause some violence, but it would be "short-term" /3

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@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost I dug out old thread on this from the time -- and why, it wouldn't work. /4

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@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost Which brings us to second observation, which is that Frost remains in denial about the real choices posed by the famous Irish 'trilemma' -- hence the highlighted sentence in Frost's Foreword, which just skates over, but doesn't address the issue of the border/5

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost At no point does this @BorisJohnson @DavidGHFrost government take responsibility for the consequences of its own choices to do a super-hard #Brexit -- leave customs union, NO veterinary/SPS deal etc -- and its impact on Northern Ireland /6

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson That's why Edwin Poots the DUP agri minister (and no remainer, he) wrote to UK Gov and said a Swiss-style veterinary deal was a "key ask" to make the Protocol work. The EU even offered a temporary/terminable deal. UK again said no. /7

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@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson Given everything that went before (three years trying to thread this needle) when you see it in that context, what you also see is the UK once again trying to put Ireland's place in the single market back on the negotiating block. In Brussels, it feels like gangster politics. /8

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson Which brings me to third observation, which is that there are problems (well documented with the Protocol) and the EU has been too slow to give up mitigations...but the fundamental problem is that Johnson/Frost are still dodging trade-offs that plagued talks for 3 years /9

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson The UK may bet that the EU27 won't over-react to an expansive use of Article 16 safeguards clause -- perhaps unilaterally disapplying Articles 5-10 where ECJ bites via UK domestic legislation as has been speculated -- but there is real risk of miscalculation here /10

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson UK foot-dragging on the East-West border is one thing; seeking to crowbar more easements out of Brussels another...but if the gameplan is to go back to diplomatic strong-arm tactics and bet Brussels won't bite, that's a huge gamble. Because it touches a central EU nerve /11

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson In some ways, we are back to that era in 2019 when Lord Frost was advising Boris Johnson to stand firm on the tech border question, betting that Angela Merkel/Berlin would get the Irish to cave in -- then Merkel called Johnson and disabused him of this. So he did the deal/12

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson That deal -- one @theresa_may said no British prime minister could ever do -- was then done by @BorisJohnson to "get #Brexit done" while, per Dom Cummings in July, ignoring the "babbling" of officials about Northern Ireland, rule of law etc. /13

https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1412041301600636928?lang=en

@Policy_Exchange @DavidGHFrost @BorisJohnson @theresa_may We now have to see where Johnson set the cursor this time around.

As noted previously, there are issues/solutions here: Arguments for tweaking Article 10 on state subsidy; deeper easements on Irish Sea border..

But a unilateral re-write from first principles is not that. ENDS