Another head-banging day for the £112bn UK creative sector that is starting to ingest how difficult #Brexit is going to make their lives - and how little the government is really willing to do to fix the lack of a 'mobility' chapter in the EU-UK trade deal. Quick update.../1

It's OUT! My latest #Brexit Briefing for @FinancialTimes - examining @BorisJohnson
"buy now, pay later" Northern Ireland Protocol, why the EU-UK trust deficit is killing it, how that can be restored - because it needs to work. /1

@BorisJohnson The danger here is that lingering animus over the opportunistic nature Johnson's Faustian bargain - dividing his Kingdom in order to 'get #Brexit done' and win an 80-seat majority - is clouding judgement on both sides of the Channel /2

@BorisJohnson The facts of the Protocol are no less true for Johnson's constant denial of them - that there would be checks, that there really is a trade border that now prevents plants and pets from travelling freely from Bedford to Ballymena as M.Gove reminds us. But these are other facts/3

@BorisJohnson Firstly, NI remains part of UK, even if it is now has EU customs rules.

Secondly, NI remains politically divided and fragile; the Good Friday Agreement is a constant work in progress.

Thirdly, both the EU and the UK agreed to this unsatisfactory arrangement jointly. /4

@BorisJohnson Fourthly, therefore, they have a joint responsibility to make it work because

Fifthly - and most importantly — there is no alternative to it. /5

🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺💄👠👗💅🏻🕺💃🇪🇺🇬🇧🚨
UK’s £35bn fashion industry warns of “decimation” from #brexit - big names sign open letter to @BorisJohnson urging action. Many of 50,000 SMEs on the rack due to VAT, customs and work permit issues. Stay with me/1


You can read the full text of the letter here, co-ordinated by Fashion Round Table @FashionRoundTab, but tl;dr it says that #Brexit has left a "gaping hole" in an industry that relies of free movement of professionals. It's a familiar cry /2



@FashionRoundTab The industry, already whacked by #COVID19, is now discovering that cross-border sales are a horror (VAT, Customs, long delays) and models, stylists, photographers that used to blat around Europe can't any more. They need permits, for themselves, for their gear /3

It is on one level amazing that this is only just fully dawning - as the musician industry found out recently - but fashion is not just big names and big companies. It's actually a mountain of small companies and sole traders often that feed into a huge (£35bn) industry /4

I've written about fashion models issue before (they need tier-5 sponsorship visas) and how that will erode London's status as a hub, but this goes so much wider than this - hence the #dontmakefashionhistory campaign - and comes down the lack of a mobility chapter in the deal /5

BREAK: The UK drops all its 'law breaking' clauses - including plans for more in forthcoming taxation bill - after @michaelgove
and @MarosSefcovic agree deal on terms of implementing Northern Irish Protocol. 1/

https://t.co/MdBbcI8vjd

@MarosSefcovic This is obviously very good news - recalling that it relates to the implementation of last autumn's deal to allow #Brexit to happen without returning a trade border to island of Ireland...but leaving one in the Irish Sea. /2

@MarosSefcovic The statement says that the two sides have determined "criteria for goods to be considered 'not at risk' of entering the EU" - though the extent to which goods pay tariffs UK-EU will depend on whether we get an FTA with the EU. (Even if we do, some still will) /3

@MarosSefcovic The two sides have also agreed on the 'reachback' of Article 10 or the "application of State aid under the terms of the Protocol" which the UK govt feared could be used to constrain UK govt subsidy decisions after January 1 /4

@MarosSefcovic This was because EU state aid law applied to UK in respect of NI Goods - so risk of 'catching' a UK decision to, say, give a bank a tax break if it had NI Clients...thereby blowing hole in @BorisJohnson 'sovereign' Brexit. An understanding has been reached here. /5

🚨🚨🚚🚛🚨🚨email from Robert Hardy @RobHardyFR8 whose Customs Clearance Consortium is part of govt’s £200m scheme for GB-NI border warns of “huge shortage” of customs agents. Via @SJAMcBride /1

https://t.co/WoLWdI8LoF

He adds: “Export from GB with import to Ireland [is] amongst the most complicated...We expect heavy volumes at Dover from tonight as GB exports start to ramp up and many transporters do not have transit and EU clearance in place.” ...remember @BrandonLewis ‘no border’ tweet 🙄/2

He then warns - as @RHARichardB had warned - that the issue is companies providing poorly cleansed/matched data...and announces CCC doesn’t have capacity to raise docs in mainland EU/3

This is example of what Biz needs to do when moving agri foods - hauliers and vets tell me there is still no solution from Defra/Daera on how to do multiple pickups that require export health certificates at each stop (not uncommon) /4

In the next week or two we’ll see how these issue play into supply chains - and the issue that trucks flow in a cycle, GB-NI/IE-GB...so you need enough returning to keep the flow going. /5

The important difference between AstraZeneca's relationship with the UK and with the EU, and the reason it has fallen behind schedule on 50m vaccine doses promised to the EU, is that the UK agreed the deal with AZ a full three months before the EU did - which gave...

AZ an extra three months to sort out manufacturing and supply problems relating to the UK contract (there were plenty of problems). Here is the important timeline. In May AZ reached agreement with Oxford and the UK government to make and supply the vaccine. In fact Oxford...

had already started work on the supply chain. The following month AZ reached a preliminary agreement with Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy, a group known as the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance, based on the agreement with the UK. The announcement was 13 June. BUT the EU...

insisted that the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance could not formalise the deal. The European Commission insisted it should take over the contract negotiations on behalf of the whole EU. So were another two months of talks and the contract was not signed till the end of August...

What is frustrating for AZ is that the extra talks with the European Commission led to no material changes to the contract, but wasted time on making arrangements to make the vaccine with partner sites. The yield at these partner sites has been lower than expected. The problem...

1/ Lots of good analysis out there on why the EU-China CAI is a bad decision in the context of Xinjiang, transatlantic partnerships, etc. But I also think that even the trade/econ benefits of the CAI look quite limited. Thread:

2/ It highlights, as a win, that China’s preservation of existing liberalizations. That’s positive, but not really a big problem; the bigger issue is stagnation, where reform pledges have failed to materialize after years/decades of promises. Great example is in the FDI openings,

3/ which are highlighted to include cloud, auto, fin services etc—all areas of EU/MNC interest. Thing is, these openings aren’t new. China has begun opening auto/finance since 2018/19, while the 50% cap on cloud services has remained unchanged since 2015 (or before if we consider

4/ WTO ascension commitments vs the 2015 Telecom Catalogue, but that’s for another day). So these are existing openings that are repackaged as “wins.” More critical issue beyond FDI caps is around licensing issuance, which still big problem. Arguably some more significance in

5/ R&D and health? Not an expert, but the FDI conditions (eg hospitals only in certain cities) are limiting, while R&D could be complicated by data/info controls. It’s also unclear how existing tech transfer prohibitions exceed existing protections in the foreign investment law,

BREAKING: The EU’s chief negotiator has told MEPs that negotiations on a post-Brexit deal could continue until Wednesday but no further.

2/ According to sources present, Michel Barnier also warned the UK that a deal would not be approved by member states if it pressed ahead with passing the Internal Market and the Finance Bills into law.

3/ He told the European Parliament’s Brexit coordination committee this morning that US President Elect Joe Biden was also “sensitive” to any impact of UK law on the Good Friday Agreement.

4/ Mr Barnier told MEPs the talks were in the “endgame” and that there would have to be a decision on whether or not there was to be an agreement by Thursday.

5/ He said if there was no deal then the European Commission would be ready “to react immediately” with contingency plans, according to sources present.

#SLE_IanDunt 30 minutes to the start of our "Evening with Ian Dunt". Information here: https://t.co/9bLxOtCr56
Log-in tickets from https://t.co/iKcwmQh7gZ. See you soon!

We will be live tweeting on this thread ...

Blimey; 19 pages of Zoom logins, 25 on each!

A crucial moment in the first page of the story of how to get back into the EU

Borders for goods: the Single Market removes checks on goods; relies a lot of people putting in the right information at the right time

@SpecCoffeeHouse @NicholasTyrone I think you have missed the essential point that we have now passed peak Brexit. From now on only the disastrous reality will come at us from all sides. 57% already were Remainers on the day we joined. Soon a huge majority will hate Brexit. I expect poll tax riots response level

@NicholasTyrone Already the biggest vote winner, fish , has turned out to be a disaster. We’ve ended up with a FTA smaller than the UK itself. Gibraltar joined Schengen, Falklands shafted. UK regions never wanted It. #BrexitReality . #Brexitbenefits , there are none. #Brexitears from now on

@NicholasTyrone Remember too, this was a Tory internal civil war foisted on an uninterested country that they only won because of the #Austeridiocy policy falsely foisted after the financial crash. It was a protest vote. There are no benefits to Brexit. It’s a #ToryBrexitShambles .

@NicholasTyrone There will only be one direction of travel now, back towards the EU. We are currently effectively a vassal state and #Whatsovereignty ? We have only lost it. We have also become a sprat in a puddle not the leading big fish in the big bloc, the EU. This was always a fishy affair

@NicholasTyrone Oh yes. We’re also one of the biggest jokes on the planet, and will take centre stage as the worlds biggest Buffoon departs.... #Brexitisntworking #brexitleavesbritainnaked