Thread by @pmdfoster

“Frost’s threats ‘deter trade’ with Northern Ireland” — massively under appreciated part of debate on NI Protocol.

An aggressive trigger of Article 16 will screw up NI trade. As
@ManufacturingNI @Big_Kells explains. /1

thetimes.co.uk/article/71df83…

@ManufacturingNI @Big_Kells The UK govt plan is apparently designed to defend NI economy...but it's hard to think, if the UK is not properly applying EU single market rules at the Irish Sea border, that NI businesses will keep their special access to EU single market. /2

@ManufacturingNI @Big_Kells Take all those NI milk producers that send milk to the South to be processed and then shipped onwards....and many of those agricultural interests are Unionist. A full blown London-Dublin-Brussels spat really does nothing for them. /3

You get same message from retail via @MichaelAodhan and logistics via @Freight_NI’s Seamus Leheny …pulling down the border we agreed in Irish might, counter intuitively, strangle trade, not release it/4

@MichaelAodhan @Freight_NI I know NI trade groups don't want to be piggy in the middle of the politics here between London - Dublin - Brussels....they just want legal certainty, simplicity, predictability etc...but these voices will make it harder for @BorisJohnson @DavidGHFrost to justify confrontation/5

@MichaelAodhan @Freight_NI @BorisJohnson @DavidGHFrost And all that doesn't, of course, preclude or diminish the main GB-EU sh*tshow that is being threatened in some quarters of Brussels if there is a full blown EU-UK trade confrontation over Ireland as a result of UK action that threatens Ireland's place in EU single market. /6

@MichaelAodhan @Freight_NI @BorisJohnson @DavidGHFrost But worth pondering as another dimension of this puzzle as London contemplates next steps..... ENDS

@MichaelAodhan @Freight_NI @BorisJohnson @DavidGHFrost Report via @LouisaClarence