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Hugo Dixon @Hugodixon
, 7 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
1/7 Customs partnership isn’t enough to avoid border controls - we'll also need to copy EU rules on goods too infacts.org/7-home-truths-…
2/7 …but "Max Fac" isn’t even part of the solution. Embrace that and we undermine peace in Ireland and gum up our industries’ supply lines too.
3/7 Customs partnership doesn’t help services... To achieve that, we’d probably need to follow the EU’s rules on services too.
4/7 Customs partnership means being tangled in red tape...
5/7 … it won’t be ready for donkeys’ years. While we're waiting for Godot, we'll have to stay in customs union. No wonder Brexiters are going bananas.
6/7 All this would turn us into a rule-taker - or a "vassal state" as Boris Johnson used to say. Currently we make the rules.
7/7 Only good solution: stay in EU

As Cabinet thrashes around looking for a Brexit deal that will satisfy nobody, all the more reason for a #PeoplesVote with the option to stay in
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1/ PM's Brexit proposal will turn UK into a eunuch without even protecting 80% of our economy, services. And to get a deal, we'll have to make more concessions to EU. This is NOT a soft Brexit. It is a castration Brexit. We need a #PeoplesVote
2/ May doesn't just want to follow EU rules on goods. She wants to do same on competition policy - and is hinting she'll do same for environmental, social and consumer policy too. How is this taking back control? Vote Leave = LOSE control
3/ We'll pay "due regard" to the ECJ too. No harm in following EU rules or ECJ when we make the rules and have judge on the court. But doing so without a vote on rules or a judge turns us into a quasi-colony. #StopBrexit #PeoplesVote
Read 12 tweets
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Absolutely bloody marvellous. Theresa May has caved on a meaningful vote. Fab day for democracy. Chance of #PeoplesVote has gone up. So has chance of stopping Brexit entirely.
My column gives more detail infacts.org/may-caves-on-m…
UPDATE. I have edited the column to inject more notes of caution. Still think this is good news. But more work will be needed before government concessions can be banked.
Read 3 tweets
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1/11 New facts which mean we need a #PeoplesVote

The Brexit talks are going badly because we need the EU more than it needs us. As a result, the government is making one climb-down after another.

infacts.org/11-key-facts-w…
2/11 The government has agreed to pay a divorce bill of at least £35 billion to leave the EU. That’s 100 times the £350 million a week extra for the NHS that the Leave campaign falsely promised.
3/11 We will have to follow EU rules in the 21-month transition without a vote on them. That’s losing, not taking back control.
Read 11 tweets

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A thread 👇 on the backstop which highlights the absurdity of the current impasse.

Plus a thought experiment which shows how the EU might accidentally give the UK a goods-only Single Market because of the backstop - precisely what they dismissed at Salzburg 🤯
1/ It’s often argued that Northern Ireland was barely discussed during the 2016 referendum. Well, we are certainly making up for that now. The backstop is 1 & only issue blocking an orderly Brexit. Unless a way through can be found, we may be at No Deal.
2/ When the EU agreed to the concept of a backstop back in December it took a risk, as a senior European Commission source confirmed to me later. It was breaking its “no cherry picking” approach.
Read 15 tweets
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My reply to @TomTugendhat & @AllieRenison on why we must #ChuckChequers if we want to avoid Norway+ & have an independent trade policy. THREAD =>
1) Trade experts have panned the idea of FCA and crucially exposed the false statistics & assumptions at heart of FCA, as revealed by Oliver Wright in Times. thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit…
2) Lord Lilley explained how the figures for FCA are actually far worse. Over half the imports that would be under consideration in an FTA would be subject to the complex repayment system. No basis for a reciprocal FTA.
brexitcentral.com/deceit-heart-c…
Read 15 tweets
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001/ [article content in this tweet series 001-180 reproduced with permission from Martin Howe QC of Lawyers for Britain @lawyers4britain]
#quote "Leaving the EU on WTO terms: pulling down the barriers to world trade
Introduction: why prices will FALL after Brexit, not rise" /002
002/ #quote "Over the past couple of weeks, the media have been full of lurid scare stories about what will happen if the UK leaves the EU on WTO terms, because negotiations with the EU do not result in a withdrawal agreement." /003
#tariffs #NoDeal #Brexit #WTO #ProjectFear #shortages #food #medicines
003/ #quote "One of the most ridiculous and UNJUSTIFIED of these absurd scare stories is that it will lead to higher prices, and even shortages, of foods and medicines." /004
Read 180 tweets
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NEW: Government circulated papers at Brexit meeting with 10 biz chiefs & key Cabinet mins on June 20, acknowledging a 5 year wait to develop customs systems... in turn told it would take a decade for a system suitable for small businesses in supply chains news.sky.com/story/post-bre…
1. Meeting on June 20th chaired by Lidington, with Gove, Fox, Clark and Robbins present, and Diageo, retailers Tesco and Asos, manufacturers BMW, GE, GSK, logistics company UPS, ABP, BCC & EEF
2. Ministers present presented “thorough detailed” versions of both Customs Partnership and Max Fac, which built on work from consultants McKinsey and BCG.. acknowledged multi year wait for systems to make work
Read 14 tweets
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The key sentence in this piece for me is the very first one.
prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/free-…
Remember all those times UK commentators and politicians told us that the Irish border question was fiendishly complicated and impossible to fathom?
In fact the issues are incredibly simply.

Any undergraduate who has studied the basics of trade policy and understands the difference between a CU and an FTA could explain to you why you will always have border controls without a CU.
Read 10 tweets
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EU future relationship guidelines: thread

Tough & no big surprises: EU emphasise both N Ireland as outstanding issue a& Gibraltar in 1st para, reiterate previous guidelines from April & Dec 17 on integrity of single mkt, EU institutions & reference the EP’s 14/3 resolution 1.
EU want close relationship w UK on trade & security but emphasise the UK’s red lines mean it can’t be that deep a deal (so much for deep and ambitious from May) and that there will be negative impacts particularly for UK 2.
Emphasise the EU want a level-playing field with the UK underpinning any deal – if it gets that it will be prepared to be ‘ambitious’; yet again reiterates there is no cherry-picking of the single mkt, & the UK can’t have as close a deal outside the EU as in. 3.
Read 9 tweets

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