NEW: 🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🚛🚚🍤🐟🚢🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨 Building of Brexit border posts faces delays via...industry calling for delay to July 1 U.K. #brexit border roll out - my latest via ⁦@FinancialTimes⁩

@FinancialTimes This goes back to last year, when UK gov got £430m of bids for new Border Control Posts and only funded £194m worth - and those bids that won took a 33pc 'haircut'. Result, everyone unhappy - those that got nothing, and those that won, got not enough /2

https://t.co/tk22KFIUGe
@FinancialTimes The result is that ports looking to build BCPs to accommodate new border coming in from July 1 say they haven't got enough money. They want either delays to border on July 1, or flexible implementation. /3
@FinancialTimes So as @timgmorris of @UKMajorPorts group tells me: “We need urgent action from the government to show flexibility either on the July 1 deadline or what is required on that date....or accept potentially serious implications for traffic flows this summer." /4
@FinancialTimes @timgmorris @UKMajorPorts As @richard_bpa of @britishports says “There is now a real danger that customs infrastructure won’t be ready by July in some ports and we’re urging ministers to take a pragmatic approach to ensure that goods can continue moving at those locations,” /5
@FinancialTimes @timgmorris @UKMajorPorts @richard_bpa @britishports Among the leading ports facing shortfalls is Portsmouth, a local council-owned facility that requested £32m in funds but received £17.1m to cover essential schemes it has estimated will cost £22.3m — leaving a £5.2m shortfall. /6
@FinancialTimes @timgmorris @UKMajorPorts @richard_bpa @britishports The port has had to rule out building a £7m BCP for live animals (UK sends about 30,000 animals a year, lots of them breeding stock to EU - and about same come the other way)...but is also short for its main BCP /7
@FinancialTimes @timgmorris @UKMajorPorts @richard_bpa @britishports The port is Portsmouth City council owned, and today the Cabinet was sent a report detailing the issues by the directors/8

https://t.co/wkQW81BBOQ
@FinancialTimes @timgmorris @UKMajorPorts @richard_bpa @britishports Port Director @mikesellersPIP says they are "far from having the funds to meet even the most basic requirements.”

And the report gov handling - @cabinetofficeuk and @DefraGovUK - has been "inadequate, inequitable and ponderous". /9
@FinancialTimes @timgmorris @UKMajorPorts @richard_bpa @britishports @mikesellersPIP @cabinetofficeuk @DefraGovUK The government says they are making "significant preparations" to be ready for the border in July and "full border checks will be introduced from July 2021" based on Port Infrastructure Award grants.

Will they stick to that,? On past form, if chaos looms, I bet not. ENDS

More from Peter Foster

Good to see @Marthakearney on @BBCr4today taking @pritipatel to task over the numbers of lorries in Dover - now 1,500 in Stack (M20) and Manston airfield combined - rather more than 170 that @BorisJohnson said yesterday, baffling haulage groups /1

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson She won't say whether lorry drivers will have to take a PCR test (long-winded, requires RNA extraction etc. 24-48hrs) rather than much faster (and less sensitive) lateral flow test. Short Strait will struggle to operates with PCR tests. You'd need one yesterday for tomorrow! /2

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson Because of the delays that have empty lorries already stuck in the queues, in an earlier interview British Retail Consortium @the_brc Andrew Opie said fresh food shortages would occur within days because lorries couldn't get back to Spain etc to reload /3

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson @the_brc Haulage experts like @RHADuncanB are always at pains to explain that the lorries at Dover (and GB-IE, for that matter) are flowing in a continuous cycle. More than 85% are from EU countries. So if you block one side, or artery the whole system starts to grind to a halt/4

@BBCr4today @pritipatel @BorisJohnson @the_brc @RHADuncanB This episode has been a bit of a teaching moment, exposing the canard that the UK can unilaterally "take back control of its borders". It can't. Borders are membranes. Traffic flows in both directions. Actions by one side impact the other - as French move has demonstrated. /5

More from Brexit

A further thread on the EU/UK musicians/visa for paid work issue (the issue is paid work: travelling to sing or play at eg a charity event for free can be done without a visa).


The position that we now have now (no relevant provisions under the TCA) is complicated. For EU musicians visiting the UK see


In essence the UK permits foreign (including EU) nationals to stay up to 30 days to carry out paid engagements, but they must (a) prove they are a professional musician and (b) be invited by an established UK business.

Either condition could be tricky for a young musician starting out and wanting to play gigs. And 30 days isn’t long enough for a part in a show with a run.

Longer stays require a T5 visa - which generally requires you to be in a shortage occupation (play an instrument not played in the UK?) or to have an established international reputation.

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.