1. The EU's aim in phase one was to exact compensation for the externalities imposed by UK's decision to leave on the Budget, EU citizens and Northern Ireland
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Why does the US organise a missile wall for Israel, but not Ukraine?
And not just the US — France, and Arab states were also involved.
🧵
2/ Obama ran his foreign policy policy on the principle: “don’t do stupid stuff”.
Biden’s is “don’t allow stupid stuff to get out of hand”
3/ Or in the jargon, “escalation management”. This is a cold, strategic world view that doesn’t take morality or values into account - that’s a weakness in my view, but not what I’m getting into here.
2/ Fico's SMER party topped the poll in the weekend's elections in Slovakia, giving him the first choice to form a government
3/He ran on an aggressively pro-Russian, anti-NATO and fiscally irresponsible campaign promising to cut off aid to Ukraine and spend money Slovakia doesn't have (Slovakia is in the Eurozone)
Why has Britain been in decline in the last few years. This graph provides a clue. 🧵
2/ Everyone knows Britain has a two-party majoritarian system. The aim is to bring together about 40% of the vote and win more than your opponents in enough constituencies to govern.
3/ These Tory/Labour switchers are political gold. Identify them, persuade them, and you can win elections with relatively small amounts of the vote while your opponents pile up huge majorities voting for ridiculous caricatures in, say Islington North or Somerset and Froome
Orbán's Hungary has vetoed the latest EU aid to Ukraine €18 billion.
What can be done about it? Thread.
2/ Hungary already has a procedure against it, under Article 7 of the EU treaties, for violating the EU's founding values, including democracy and the rule of law
3/The process is stalled because the PiS govt in Poland, also in the dock for rule of law violations, is backing Orbán.
.@UKSupremeCourt rules the Scottish Parliament doesn’t have the power to hold an advisory referendum on Scottish independence.
I’m preparing a paper for @MartensCentre on Brexit and Scotland that addresses it, here is a thread on its political implications
1/
2/ The court didn’t buy the argument that only the purely legal effect of the referendum should be considered in applying its judgement. It argued that political effects mattered too.
3/ Since this was about legislation proposed by an SNP government that wants independence, the court was not convinced by pretence that it was only a glorified opinion poll.
It upheld one of the central legal principles of British law: “don’t take the piss”
Setting aside Brexit, the Truss govt has an excellent* policy agenda including increased defence spending, increased immigration, enterprise zones , even hints of planning reform. Why did it all go wrong so fast?🧵
*excellent = things I’ve called for in my @conhome columns, ofc
2/ Labour supporters say it went wrong because it lowered taxes on the rich; others promote bizarre conspiracy theories about hedge fund manager tory donors engineering a run on the pound so they can short it.
3/ If you support Labour you might disagree with the effects of Tory policy on distribution (that’s probably why you support Labour in the first place). It’s not the same as saying it doesn’t work.