Thread by @GeorgePeretzQC

Some comments on this statement.

https://twitter.com/davidghfrost/status/1471809658788749319

Worth noting Frost’s express admission that the current government’s chosen relationship with the EU places “burdensome”arrangements on GB businesses and has a “chilling effect” on trade and investment.

And that “regulatory burdens” on GB/EU trade will “get worse” as the current government succeeds in promoting divergence.

My own initial assessment is that the EU’s legislative proposals resolve most of the main issues on medicines, in particular the risk that medicines available in GB wouldn’t be available in NI. (I’ll tweet about this later if I have time.)

Looks as if Frost may be of the same preliminary view (caution understandable when details published yesterday).

On State aid, I’ve already explained why I have some sympathy with the current government’s point here. See eurelationslaw.com/blog/the-uks-p…

Shame that the current government didn’t pick up and deal with the point (a) when the subsidy control provisions in the TCA were agreed or (b) without losing it in a slew of other much less sustainable complaints. But there we are.

On governance. It is hard to read the current government’s complaint about democratic accountability without pointing out that the issue was obvious from the start: and yet it agreed the Protocol and sold it enthusiastically to voters.

Or without observing the absence of any constructive solution.

As for the ECJ, the proposed mechanism leads back to the ECJ on any EU law issue arising (ie any issue under the main provisions of the Protocol). But, hey ho, fig leaves.

It also isn’t clear to me how the mechanism would work in a case where the Commission or other EU agency has powers in NI under the Protocol (State aid among others). How would challenges to their decisions operate?

A promise that - under the current government’s approach to our trade and regulatory relationship with the EU, the Protocol saga isn’t going to go away.

But again no coherent explanation as to how the current government’s aim of divergence (it often seems for its own sake) can be achieved without a hard border somewhere.