NEW: Brussels issues UK list of “good faith” tests to fully implement EU-UK #Brexit divorce deal if it wants deeper relationship — not a bust up, but a clear reminder this won’t be easy. My and my esteemed Brussels colleague @AndyBounds via @ft /1

on.ft.com/3SsDC3y The gripes are about fully implementing Windsor Framework — the deal that removed appearance of Irish Sea border — but still needs vet checks, parcel data, pet microchip checks, accurate certification of agrifoods. Which EU says isn’t fully happening. /2

A quick (I promise) thread on @RachelReevesMP promises to boost EU-UK trade by aligning on regs (eg chemicals), doing a veterinary deal (no SPS checks) and boosting services via 'mutual recognition of professional qualifications' - taking each in order /1 First alignment. Two points:
1. via @joelreland of @UKandEU 'alignment doesn't get you access'.

See his new report here, setting out why technical agreements to improve EU-UK trade will have 'minimal' impact on economy /2

ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/upl…

NEW: Gove’s top-down plan to build 150,000 houses in Cambridge by 2040 declared “nonsensical” by local council leaders because they don’t have water supply to build existing plan for 50,000 by that date! 🤯 But Gove keeps giving interviews promising it/1

ft.com/content/d1c0bf… “The 150,000 homes would appear to just be nonsensical, if I’m honest, because the infrastructure just isn’t there,” Mike Davey, @mikelode1 Labour leader of Cambridge City Council /2

David Frosts column on #Brexit this morning goes in three phases:

- gaslighting readers over his “thin” deal being actually fat 🙄

- some actual truth on UK as rule taker

- and then total failure to admit he’s responsible for this mess 🧵1/4

telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/1… First the gaslighting: his deal is a ‘reverse’ trade deal…it erects barriers, it doesn’t remove them. It’s only “broadest deal ever” if UK started from zero relations, rather than working down from Single Market membership. As he well knows, but I wonder about the readers.😬 /2

🚨🚨when ministers aren’t bashing UK universities they love to boast about them. Rightly. But unless something changes on funding there will be a lot less to boast about in 10 years time. /1

Here’s why via @ft Big Read…

on.ft.com/3rtAhGF As Simon Marginson Higher Education prof at Oxford University explains the UK is in danger of getting back to the funding crisis levels that sparked need for tuition fees…/2

Went to the Midlands to talk to UK manufacturers about slow #Brexit strangle. @MakeUK_ CEO Stephen Phipson summed up the challenge:

"The question we must ask is, ‘would Airbus make all their wings in the UK, if they were making that decision now’?” /1

https://t.co/YwerpUopHKft.com/content/2f99a9…


What he's getting at is that #Brexit is not, as is still widely supposed, a one-off event that companies adjust to.

It's a permanent friction that makes UK companies a risker bet for your supply chain than an EU company. And that matters for maufacturing/2

This was interesting session. The 'chart wars' are a bit baffling if you're not an economist. I'm not. But I am a reporter. Gudgin argued #Brexit had no effect on the economy, but I don't know how that squares with all the conversations I've had with business in last 6 years/1

https://twitter.com/UKandEU/status/1638619337991790607

I get you can argue over the quantum of #brexit impact -- Springford model says -5.5% GDP, Portes reckons that fees too high, says thinks -2.5%...Jessop said -1%, but transitory...but "nothing" surely doesn't pass the sniff-test (to quote Gudgen on Springford's Doppelgangers /2

Graham Gudgin says that @JohnSpringford "doppelganger" method of analysing Brexit is a "statistical artefact" -- one that is used by Office of Budget Responsibility in their March 2023 forecast.

obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploa… == see p.47

https://twitter.com/UKandEU/status/1638619337991790607

Gudgin concludes that Brexit has had no real impact on UK economy. And talk about Brexit masks real reason for productivity crunch. OBR, Bank of England, CER etc and BBC/FT that report these studies are distracting.

🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨SO. David Davis tells @instituteforgov that Whitehall did a "cr*p job" of negotiating #Brexit...and then tells anecdote of ill-prepared @BorisJohnson making a "horlicks" of his contribution at Chequers. And you wonder where the problem was? 🤔/1
instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/… Was the problem "cr*p" civil servants who Davis says were too close to the EU and blinded by the fact that their EU interlocuters were "nice" to them...or was it witless and confused politicians, too lazy to do their homework (see Boris above) and too weak to face trade-offs?/2

🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨NEW estimate that ending free movement has led to a 330,000 short fall in UK labour market, with lower skilled sector hit hardest #Brexit via @ft @jdportes @JohnSpringford @CER_EU @UKandEU /1

on.ft.com/3Xgc3L7 As @jdportes says, this change will have “profound” impact on UK labour market. Some will win, others lose. @JohnSpringford sees combo of “higher wages and prices and less output” in sectors that can’t automate /2

Credit to Sunak and @chhcalling, they have definitely shifted the mood with Brussels on NI Protocol negotiations. Officials say an agreement on data sharing looks likely to pave way to "substantive discussions" (??🚨Tunnel claxon🚨??) on outstanding issues. All that said.../1

https://twitter.com/Jacobbe79601492/status/1612731895292338178

Both sides are talking about a "step by step" approach and expecations of a "big bang" deal, as @tconnellyRTE reported yesterday are reasonably low, certainly before the Jan 19 deadline for fresh elections in Northern Ireland /2

🚨🚨damning @britishchambers report into EU-UK trade deal two years after Brexit finds businesses facing “structural” challenges because of low-ambition trade deal struck by @BorisJohnson @DavidGHFrost and govt doing little about it /1

on.ft.com/3FLhwlu You will recall @BorisJohnson saying the deal created no “non-tariff barriers to trade” but that’s not what UK small businesses are finding as they grapple with rules of origin, import VAT, import licenses for cosmetics, export health certs etc /2

gov.uk/government/spe…

🚨🚨NEW: City and academia raise red flag over planned Home Office “foreign influence” register — OK idea, just terribly executed. Risks chilling investment and collaboration because far too broad and poorly drafted - via @ft /1

on.ft.com/3FmgdJE The @TheCityUK is demanding meeting with @TomTugendhat warning the scheme needs to be better designed or risk inadvertently criminalising and deterring legitimate interactions. /2

Dispiriting that Levelling Up dept is still brazenly saying UK Shared Prosperity Fund (post-#Brexit replacement for EU structural funds) "matches" EU funding in England. It doesn't. I've seen the spreadsheet that says as much...as I reported in April/1

ft.com/content/bf8fa3…

https://twitter.com/path_dependent/status/1600052438840459265

This is NOT about that weaselly argument that LUP dept has been using that money that was being disbursed from the final years of the last EU funding (21/22 and 22/23) round "counts" as "matching" EU money before it "ramps up" in 24/25 .../2

What happens when you cut a super low-ambition trade deal with by-far your largest trade partner? Here @ChrisGiles_ provides insight in four key #Brexit charts: a less open economy, reduced trade, slower growth and business investment via @FT /1

ft.com/content/e39d03… Some of you may recall @DavidGHFrost in early 2020 as negotiations for the TCA were starting saying he believed non-tariff barriers to trade were "exaggerated"...and seems to have done a barebones FTA on that basis. Two years on.../2

no10media.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/17/dav…

What happens when #COVID19 lands on a public sector already stretched tight as a drum by Osborne austerity…Backlog Britain,
is what.

So with @FT data science colleagues @federicacocco @olihawkins we tell the story in charts to make you blanche…/1

on.ft.com/3Vs2Pdi NHS…7mn waiting for elective treatments. Only 60% hitting target for cancer referrals/2

🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨Morning. We're moving back to Switzerland it seems. No doubt it'll all go like clockwork. If you want good primer/backgrounder this from @SarahMOverton via @UmKandEU is excellent.

CCing @RishiSunak @Jeremy_Hunt for info! /1

ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/eu-… This all stems from this michievous @cazjwheeler story in Sunday Times. Sourcing unclear but obviously it's an antidote to some of the dafter "Brexit isnt making us poorer", stuff that senior ministers are cornered into all the time these days. /2

thetimes.co.uk/article/britai…

Spanish trade minister in London. Notes recovery of Spanish exports to UK after pandemic but warns it is “weaker than with other trade partners” because of #Brexit and…”huge concern” over plans to scrap EU-derived law by 2023 and “movement of people” — ⁦@GregHands⁩ here/1 So UK trade minister @GregHands replies…noted he’s “twice” been in the role…to titters in the room. Instability of UK politics is recurring theme of fringe discussions here. /2

Has there ever been a piece of legislation that has been so horribly rinsed as @DominicRaab Bill of Rights...or Bill of Wrongs, as you might call it?

It's biggest problem is doesn't do what Raab promises it will do -- stay with me/1

ft.com/content/7f0caa… Raab says it will “make crystal clear that the UK Supreme Court is not subordinate to the European Court of Human Rights” -- which is lapped up by the Sun and others as green-lighting the govt's Rwanda plan that has been stalled by ECHR /2 thesun.co.uk/news/20336773/…

🚨🐟🐟🌱🌱🚨Why are the UK's rivers in such a poor state? Here's a pollution story about East Midlands Airport @EMA_Airport and the Environment Agency @EnvAgency that helps to explain it. I think it will surprise you. Stay with me./1

ft.com/content/396cdd… It starts on the banks of the River Trent at Castle Donington near Derby. One of the UK's best coarse fishing spots. But also where @EMA_Airport -- a freeport and fast-growing cargo hub -- discharges surface water from its runways into the river./2

🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨post-Brexit red tape latest: UK farmers say exports will be hit by post-#Brexit regulation. Meat industry accuses @DefraGovUK of gold-plating EU export regs to a point where there aren’t enough vets to comply/1

My latest for @ft.

on.ft.com/3DMFD3F “We believe it will have an immediate impact on livestock prices here in the UK as well as causing significant and costly disruption for the supply chain,” write the groups here including @NFUtweets @BMPA_INFO (full list below) /2

britishmeatindustry.org/press-releases…