Thread by @alexhallhall

Today's thread...a very long one, (sorry) in response to a request that I share how Americans felt about Brexit. Their views were not uniform, and evolved over time. I also don't claim universal knowledge - others may have different perspective, welcome to chip in. Here goes...

Initially, mostly: ok, not sure why you voted to leave the EU, but you Brits are sensible people, must have your reasons, and presumably have a plan. We respect your democracy, and we'll always be close friends and allies..AND

Some cheerleaders - Heritage Foundation, Trump and some of his supporters: Great - we never liked the EU (especially those lecturing pious French and Germans) and now you can shake off the shackles and consolidate with us (ie, do what we want); BUT

One year later, during May's time: Oh, it turns out you really don't know what you're doing. A Republican Senator: "I have no idea what's up with those Brits - there's some crazy shit going on over there" (it was an open forum, no OSA breach)

Amongst foreign policy experts: Brexit is a huge distraction, and opens fissures in transatlantic alliance, when we need to stay strong and united in face of hostile threats and new challenges (Russia, China etc); ..and

UK was most valuable to us when you were in the EU - you were a bridge between us, helping sustain cooperation, avoid misunderstandings. We're happy of course to keep working with you, but you're less useful now...and

"Global Britain" - what on earth does that mean, anyway? You need to put some substance to it. You've cut your aid budget. Your defence budget - even if technically higher proportion of GDP, is still smaller, if your overall GDP is falling.

Amongst security community: now that you're out of Schengen and all the police and judicial cooperation with the EU, you're also less helpful to us there - we can work around it, but it's a hassle, and we'll now need to work closer with other European countries to replace you.

Amongst scientific community - we're really sad you left Horizon - we'll still collaborate with world beating UK scientists, but it'll be less effective than before, because we'll have less access to shared cooperation and funds with EU partners

Amongst professionals - and it's really annoying that we can no longer move our staff so freely between UK and EU; makes it less attractive to hire a Brit, rather than an english speaking European for our European operations;

Amongst business: A Fortune 500 Executive: of course we like the idea of a UK-US trade deal, but there's no way it will replicate anything like the trade you will lose with the EU;

A dairy business: We just invested millions in a new facility in Ireland, based on free trade and movement between NI, RoI, UK and rest of EU. Now we're really worried this will no longer be viable;

A small business: we were just about to open up a new outlet in the UK, from which we were going to trade into the EU. We've now decided to base ourselves in NL;

As hard Brexit loomed in October 2019: a few at Heritage and around Trump: Go for it - (damm the consequences - we don't accept there'll be any anyway. Irish issue is exaggerated - just a ploy). Freedom! UK-US trade deal (on our terms, naturally.....chlorinated chicken anyone?)

Congress: Actually, many of us DO care about the Irish issue. US was a guarantor of the GFA. There's no chance of a UK-US trade deal on any terms if you mess that up.

Biden really, really, cares about his Irish American heritage. A lot of Dems offended by BoJo's slurs about Obama, and sucking up to Trump.

Bipartisan - we're really shocked that you are even considering going into bed with the Chinese - Huawei deal.

We also disapprove of all the Russian and oligarch money sloshing around in your financial system;

[Some, mainly Republican] We also thought you'd stop that footling around with the Iranian deal. We're disappointed that despite Brexit, you're still not as close to us as we expected.

Experts - we also understand there are implications for the constitutional balance and division of powers and funds repatriated from the EU between the constituent parts of the UK - am amazed so few in the UK seem to be paying attention to that.

2020. Glad Brexit got done. Now we're too busy dealing with Covid, China, and our own internal issues to focus any more...

2021: Oh, Brexit isn't actually done? You're STILL arguing? Distracting G7 over sausages; raising tensions before COP over a fishing spat with the French. Threatening to break international agreements, invoke Art16? This really doesn't help us, guys. Putin is pleased, however.

We still respect your Queen. We love your accent; we love James Bond, Downton Abbey, your music, and arts. You're very quaint, with your Lords and cottages, and we still want to visit you when you finally get a grip on covid (where your handling was nearly as hapless as ours);

But actually, we don't all look back to our European heritage these days. We're much more diverse. It's not the 19th century. It's not WW2. We're dealing with today's problems, looking to Asia. We don't want to get involved in your squabbles.

We'll definitely still value our strategic partnership. AUKUS. NATO. Intelligence sharing. UN. Defence cooperation. But you've also created many problems; headaches; hassles we could do without. Brexit was not a good idea; and it was badly executed.

SCHENGEN INFORMATION SYSTEM - FOR EVERYONE CORRECTING THIS...[I KNOW WE WERE NOT IN SCHENGEN!] Sorry...twitter shorthand...