Thread by @hhesterm

OK. I feel the appointment of JRM as minister for Brexit opportunities deserves a thread. Overall - it is good news, with loads of caveats. Only start yelling at me, please, once you've read the whole thread (thread)

1) Brexit opportunities are THE big thing that is, to some extent, poisoning the debate and has been ever since the referendum campaign.

2) With Brexit, the UK is no longer bound by EU law. It can regulate differently from the EU. Now this can be good where it targets UK specifics better and/or the regulation is superior. It can be bad where the regulation is worse, the divergence as such also comes at a cost.

If our system would work as it is supposed to this would all be part of the normal regulatory process. We think we need to regulate say privacy, we look at what people want, what‘s good for the economy - including an assessment of costs of divergence from EU law.

In reality that‘s a complex process. There are contradictory goals, people disagree - compromises will have to be found.

The work would be done in the department in charge of the area, with coordination with others where needed - a complex process.

But 3) This is not where we are. Brexit has deformed discourse. Rather than saying what would be a good regulation for X with an evaluation of divergence in it, the matter of “we diverge from the EU“ has gained enormous importance - as a value as such.

That makes little sense. There‘s no value as such in diverging. There‘s no value as such in thinking where can we diverge. It is a rather peculiar approach to regulation. BUT

It is where we are. We have had repeated discussions of profiting from Brexit with divergence as the main theme - not of appropriate regulation of say data transfer. But „how can we profit from Brexit“.

This will have to end and we have to get back to normal regulatory processes. Where divergence may come up. But it may not. Where the main goal is to find a good solution. Not to be different. Where we do not have to tout benefits, but assess calmly whether a regulation is good.

All previous processes failed. There‘s the obvious high-level thinking problem: It‘s easy to say our regulation will provide the freest system for transfer of data while also guaranteeing the highest level of protection of privacy. It‘s more difficult to do it.

But the processes also failed because the people were not at the right level. A second-tier attempt to find benefits. Failed. So start over again. We need a conclusion to this debate. And only a high-profile person can bring that conclusion.

Now I am convinced that a lot of ideas for divergence do not have majorities. A lot of other ideas simplify what are complex problems. Some ideas will fly. But quite frankly the main point is: we need to return to good regulatory practices…

And those don‘t start with the idea of differing from the US or the EU or Singapore. They might include differences in a thorough assessment. But that‘s different.

You have reached the end of the thread. Feel free to disagree with me profoundly...
... NOW.