Professor of Economics, NYU Abu Dhabi. @kevinhorourke@econtwitter.net
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Sep 12, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
This reports that HMG could drop its threat to break international law if it gets a trade deal it likes. Optimists may hope that this is what is going on: a threat to increase leverage in negotiations. But there’s nothing optimistic about such a scenario. thetimes.co.uk/article/limit-…
Threatening to break the law if you don’t get your way is not how civilised countries work, it is the behaviour of rogue states outside the law. And if this is what HMG is thinking then they’re not just behaving like a rogue state. It’s much worse than that from a British POV.
The Political Declaration which HMG itself signed up to stated that "The economic partnership should through a Free Trade Agreement ensure no tariffs, fees, charges or quantitative restrictions across all sectors"
Here it is on the HMG website (para 22) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
Dec 28, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
No, the EU is not going to put up barriers to data exchange with the UK, or block City access to the EU. Brexit does both those things automatically. thetimes.co.uk/article/brusse…
Brexit destroys the legal framework that made such things possible in the first place. The UK, not the EU, is responsible for this and it is irritating to see the EU being accused of threatening to do things that Brexit does automatically.
Oct 27, 2019 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Remainers legitimately want a 2nd referendum, but really, is there any way to get it without an election victory for parties advocating it? Given that this Commons opposes it? And an extension has to be for something, not another tortuous process leading to yet another extension.
An election justifies the extension. It will also (by definition) help to legitimize whatever happens next. If the Tories get a majority they will presumably pass this withdrawal agreement, which is what Johnson wants to do. And if the Tories win, that'll be a legitimate outcome.
Oct 17, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Whatever the final decision of the House of Commons huge congratulations are due to negotiators on both sides. The EU’s red lines regarding the border have been maintained while allowing for continued E-W links & a consent mechanism that no nationalist could reasonably object to
And to those tempted to vote against the deal because of the political declaration: there is a clear link there between the depth of the relationship and level playing field conditions, and an acknowledgment that the depth of the relationship could evolve in the future.
Oct 14, 2019 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
I wonder whether Irish commentators, focussed naturally enough on the possibility of a deal, and the backstop, have not been neglecting the implications for Ireland of Johnson's stated aims for Brexit.
(Johnson's aims matter since there is every likelihood that he will win the next general election and be around for a while.)
This point needs to be made more often inside the UK since it is crucial. The deadline for a deal is not October 17, it is well before that, since a legally binding treaty is needed by October 17, not some vague aspirational language.
The EU Council will presumably discuss Brexit, but this will be the 27 remaining members meeting as they have done before behind closed doors -- they certainly won't be negotiating with Johnson at the Council since it is Barnier who does that.
Sep 21, 2019 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
It's none of my business since I'm not British but I have to say this seems sensible to me, coming as it does from a party with a strong Remainer constituency. (I am guessing it will be widely mocked though.)
You surely can't remain in the EU without a referendum & there needs to be a sensible leave choice on the ballot. No deal is a very bad leave option for the UK that no responsible politician should advocate.
Sep 21, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The real question is: does HMG really think this would fly? Or are they just pretending to negotiate in the (entirely realistic IMO) hope that people will believe that they are back home, in view of the forthcoming general election?
They’d want to be really deluded to think this would fly which is why I’m going for the make believe option. But then again the Luxembourg briefings suggest that we should rule nothing out. And Barclay’s Spanish speech does suggest an element of panic.
Sep 19, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The reasons that led the EU to demand sequencing in the talks -- divorce issues first, future relationship second -- haven't gone away. So not only will this not fly, we are regressing now to where we were before the summer of 2017. This is not progress, this is its reverse.
And what are those reasons? 1. In the EU view the UK is obliged to leave the EU without abandoning existing obligations -- towards citizens, towards EU taxpayers, towards the Irish peace process.
Sep 18, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
There are some delicious titbits in this morning's edition of the indispensable Brussels Briefing by @MehreenKhn.
Downing Street denies the accounts. Whom to believe?
Aug 30, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
@EuroBriefing makes a good point in the daily briefing this morning that I haven't heard often enough. It would not be enough for rebel MPs to force HMG to request an extension. The EU would need to be given a reason to grant it. With Johnson in no 10 it isn't clear there is one.
Presumably, in order to avoid a no deal Brexit, the request for an extension would need to be accompanied either by the ratification of the WA (and it seems unlikely Parliament will do that) or a timetable for a referendum (ditto) or a timetable for an election.
Aug 30, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Now is time for clarity on the part of the EU regarding the status of the Withdrawal Agreement and the backstop. If it is really the case that they are not going to be renegotiated then that needs to be stated in unambiguous terms right now. IMO. ft.com/content/d75cbc…
It was already clear after Johnson's trips to Berlin and Paris that he was going to use the positive mood music there to spike the guns of Tory rebels: how could you vote no confidence in a government actively negotiating on behalf of the country abroad?
Aug 21, 2019 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Here is the big intellectual problem underlying a lot of what we're hearing from the UK today. It seems that a lot of people there assume that an absence of borders is the natural state of affairs & that borders are a weird aberration. The assumption is false.
As a cursory glance around the world will confirm borders are the natural state of affairs. Their absence is the aberration. You basically only have sovereign states coexisting without borders within the EU and that is because getting rid of them was the EU's great project.
Aug 20, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The essence of cakeism. The UK will adopt its own rules, or maybe US ones, regarding goods, labour, environment, etc. So things will be sold there that may not be legal in the EU, and produced in ways that would give UK producers an unfair advantage.
thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-…
And Johnson will be more than happy to promise that there will be no border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Of course he will! And then argue that we don’t need one between Dover and Calais either.
Aug 17, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is a truly bizarre take. The EU has never pretended that a hard border could be avoided if the U.K. chooses to remove Northern Ireland from the CU and/or SM, and those wonderful technologies have not yet been invented. And the Irish government has accepted this.
In July the Irish government accepted the obvious, namely that in a no deal scenario there will be tariffs between north and south, customs and SPS requirements and associated checks. See p. 6 here: dfa.ie/media/dfa/eu/b…
Aug 13, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Am hearing from other sources that HMG may indeed genuinely believe that EU will give in at the last moment. Hard to believe they could be so naive but maybe they are. Raises question of how they’ll respond when proved wrong. thesun.co.uk/news/brexit/97…
Ironically stories like this may even make some in EU think that all the talk of no deal is a bluff designed to get that ‘better deal’...
Jul 28, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I’m not sure everyone realizes how irreversible the decision will be to leave without a transition period.
The implication will be that we revert to WTO tariffs until a free trade agreement or customs union is agreed & enters into effect. This will take years given the circumstances: the EU will be very worried about unfair U.K. competition, about the integrity of the SM etc
Jul 11, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
My thanks to @KeohaneDan for his nice review of my Brexit book at DRB: drb.ie/essays/life-wi…
Most of the piece is concerned with future challenges facing Europe and Ireland, and Dan identifies many of these. Sometimes there are no easy answers to the challenges facing Ireland. For example, politically the new Hanseatic League is the obvious home for the country...
Jul 9, 2019 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
It would be good to see Dublin acknowledge that the logical corollary of “the backstop is needed to avoid a border” is “without the backstop there will be a border”. Refusing to do so just makes a border more likely by encouraging ERG types to believe that backstop is unnecessary
