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26 Nov, 9 tweets, 4 min read
Home Sec uninvited to Sundays summit on cross Channel human trafficking after PM sends this letter suggesting joint patrols and new UK returns agreement with EU to French President, just described by him as “not serious” to have tried to negotiate “by tweet” and by public letter
Macron response:
So looks like we are back to where the French Foreign Sec put things earlier in the week:
Meanwhile, PM also suggested to Macron that “private security contractors” carry out joint Channel patrols to prevent/ deter the boats as an alternative to joint UK/France border teams…
other interesting thing in this letter is scale of ambition of a “readmission” agreement with France - in line with what was agreed with Belarus - see below. This follows UK leaving Dublin 3 arrangements post Brexit, which allowed for returns, & for legal route for family reunion
And so it’s this bit of the letter that seems to contain the news, that having previously rejected deal “you have committed to make reaching a systematic returns agreement between the UK and the EU a priority” for French EU presidency… havent heard that before publicly…
Anyway - more on this from Calais and here, and on the fishing protests, and the new variant on Newsnight tonight …

Full story on Johnson-Macron is here bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
The Le Touquet threat though is something of a staple of French Presidential elections - Sarkozy suggested it, as did Juppe, Fillon…and also Macron himself…as I recall PM May warned of the danger of a new French President suggesting scrapping Le Touquet

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More from @faisalislam

Faisal Islam Profile picture
26 Nov
So @BBCNewsnight coming up

- Omicron Variant
- Brown on the “biggest public policy failure” of our time
- report from Grand Synthe refugee camp…

#pronunciation
Significant debate at Newsnight towers over pronunciation of Omicron… and also Stephen Sondheim song for our end credits - I was pushing for Tonight or I like to be in America…. Outvoted, rightly for Dame Judi Dench from Proms with “Send in the Clowns”
Hadn’t clocked that there was a remake of West Side Story directed by Spielberg coming out very soon…
Read 4 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
26 Nov
Just interviewed exPM @GordonBrown for tonight’s @BBCNewsnight who calls “hoarding”/wastage of vaccine by G20 nations “probably biggest international public policy failure of our times”…

And says SA President @CyrilRamaphosa “rightly” feels “very let down” over vaccine promises
Brown: “There are enough vaccines to get round the whole world, probably around 500 million vaccines that are unused, stockpiled, you might say hoarded, in the West today. That’s in America and in Europe, including the United Kingdom. Vaccines that could be moved very quickly…”
“…and transferred out to poorest countries of the world to enable vaccination to take place. There is a huge danger that many of these vaccines that are being unused here are going to be wasted. They run out. They expire. The use-by date is past and they have to be destroyed.”
Read 6 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
26 Nov
EU’s ECDC says of the B.1.1.529 variant

“Based on the available evidence, this variant is likely to be associated with very high transmissibility and significant immune escape. So far, there is no evidence for changes in infection severity.” ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/… Image
UKHSA more precautionary in tone…

“It has a large number of mutations which are likely to be biologically significant, and which may change the behaviour of the virus with regards to immune escape, transmissibility, & susceptibility to some treatments.” assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… ImageImage
WHO meeting finished B 11 529 now officially classified as a “Variant of Concern” by WHO and named the “Omicron Variant”

“Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs.”

who.int/news/item/26-1…
Read 4 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
18 Nov
Important to remember that the original Benefit Cost Ratio justification for HS2 nearly a decade ago only yielded a medium-high reading of up to 1.9 times as much benefit on basis of full Y network - the first phase alone put it at 1.4 officially in “low” value for money category
Also when talking about “#levellingup” always helpful context to refer to the relevant Treasury tables that breakdown existing spending by region/ nation…

Per capita Government spend on railway services across nations and regions… this is per capita:
From the IRP - that is a considerable benefit for Manchester (1hr 11 mins) over Leeds (1 hr 53 mins) in terms of time into the capital - currently both 2 hours 10 mins away, and for connectivity of Nottingham to both London and Birmingham… Brum-Notts becomes commutable.
Read 4 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
17 Nov
NEW Irish trade figures show that in first 9 months of this year….

NI exports to Republic of Ireland since Brexit/NIP implementation UP 60% by €1bn
RoI exports to NI - UP 48%

GB exports to ROI are DOWN 21%
ROI exports to GB are UP 23%.

No GB-NI data

cso.ie/en/releasesand…
significant movements in trade - but seem to reflect more impact of Brexit generally in incentivising Irish importers to shift from British suppliers to NI suppliers. RoI exports better now. GB exports to RoI not so.

No GB-NI data make it tricky to conclude stuff re Protocol.
NI boom in exports to Republic underpinned by yesterdays excellent payrolls data here in Belfast - fastest growth in UK. Major pharma exporters are marketing themselves as single stop place to get regulatory approval for UK and EU…
Read 4 tweets
Faisal Islam Profile picture
11 Nov
NEW just interviewed the Chancellor Rishi Sunak about GDP, living standards, Article 16, Geoffrey Cox and whether taxpayers’ funding was used to guarantee loyalty of MPs in votes…
1. OBR and Bank of England forecasts show decline in living standards over next two years?

“what you're seeing is an economy that is continuing to grow. And that is a good thing. We're on the right path. But of course there are global challenges ahead…”
2. Net result of all of your measures BoE/OBR see two years of declining living standards after inflation and tax?

Chancellor: “what it doesn't include is the spending on public services and that does bring value to people's lives… We need to make sure that it's well spent …”
Read 10 tweets

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