Thread by @pmdfoster

Quick thought on @trussliz appointment to #brexit file is that it’s in principle a ‘good thing’ that it’s back in Foreign Office. Brexit should be seen in context of wider EU relations. Too often it hasn’t.

BUT it will be challenging for her politically…/1

Because as we know the right of the Tory party is in revolt and @DavidGHFrost spent a lot of time pandering to them.

Just three months ago they were being promised Article 16, mutual enforcement and the eradication of the internal border Boris built/2

Frost essentially promised in his Command paper to unwind that mistake. Go back to 2019, mutual enforcement, technology…basically wishing the Irish Trilemma away.

Now he’s walked off, he’ll be there, saying “if only”…usual Brexiter dreaming /3

But @trussliz is going to have to disappoint them if she wants a deal — as (for now) @BorisJohnson purportedly does, tho he’s quite capable of finding an excuse to change his mind.

The point is that in #brexit it’s the specifics that kills you. /4

Talking up trade deals; talking tough on Putin or making rah-rah speeches to Chatham House about freedom…that’s all easy-peasy route to the top of the @ConHome rankings.

But in Brexit, breeziness or bullying only gets you so far. Ask David Davis. Or Frost for that matter./5

It may be that @BorisJohnson softening on NI Protocol has done the hard part for @trussliz — but the deal, when it’s done, is still going to leave a proper trade border inside the U.K. — the border that Johnson said would never be there; and Frost said he’d get rid off /6

Logically @trussliz should get what she can on easement and move on. But as we’ve seen, #brexit for that fantasy wing of the party had always been about emotion, not logic. It will not be easy for the ever-chirpy Ms Truss to disappoint them. /7

I broadly agree with @Mij_Europe analysis that the appointment tends to deal/normalisation — not least because there’s a lots else to worry about.

But the history of #brexit has frequently defied common sense analysis. ENDS