BC BREXIT
Saved by @Alex1Powell

Along the way I wrote about considering Johnson’s Brexit decision as a choice between clichéd narratives. What would read / play best? Well...

 It is absolutely no surprise to me that he ended up choosing the ending that would most easily portray him as the hero who saved the day.
The tricky part of this narrative is convincing re the ‘not giving in’ part. Hence all the bluster about standing tough and being happy to walk away.
And yet.
I’m old enough to remember when we wouldn’t accept any LPF provisions, any state aid constraints and we wanted all our fish back right now. Otherwise it’s an ‘Australia’ style Brexit.
Were their tactical and negotiating manoeuvres that were successful? I’m sure there were. But it’s noteworthy that we’ve ended up with the sort of deal that everyone thought we would end up with a year ago.
Will it proceed smoothly through the hawk-eyed (sic) gaze of the ERG and pals? It’s looking hopeful. Needless to say there’s a full court press from D Street comms and friendly media to present the deal as most meritorious.
Best in mind that the ERG has been happy with various deal iterations in the past and then rowed back furiously. But post Johnson’s election the ERG is largely a spent force. I suspect they’ll go for it.
The most insightful part of the Times piece is this:

‘Critics ridicule Johnson’s self-reverential mirroring of Winston Churchill, but even they can scarcely contest that he has become the most consequential politician of his generation.’
But the problem (and benefit) of being consequential is the consequences. Has he really thought about them? I sincerely doubt it. We’ve just agreed the biggest rupture to the country’s trade relations at the last minute during a pandemic.
The short term consequences range from disruptive to disastrous. FWIW I’m at very disruptive. It’s worth remembering that whatever the level of disruption its acceptance (ie no implementation period etc) is a policy choice.
As for the longer term consequences, the most obvious are the damage to trust in government (principally from those among the c 50% of the public who lost the referendum), the decline of the manufacturing sector, and the turbo charging of independence movements.
Would the referendum have been won by Leave knowing what we know now? I sincerely doubt it. There was always a good argument for Leave but the campaign and subsequent government policy and messaged have denied or downplayed the painful trade-offs.
This vast obfuscation of the truth has been a hallmark of politics over the last five years. Ironically it’s another symptom of the sort of attitude (not caring about people’s interests) that led to the referendum result except this time aimed at a different part of society.
A substantial majority of people below the age of c 49 do not think all of this is a good idea. A substantial majority of people in Scotland do not think this is a good idea. A substantial majority of people with degrees do not think this is a good idea.
An overwhelming majority of young people do not think this is a good idea.

These people’s views have been ignored and belittled. You lost, get over it.

Will there be consequences? Oh yes.

/ends

More from Objective Columnist

Objective Columnist
Objective Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
1. Brexit. Like Christmas with Covid or dunking your head in a bucket of ice cold water or running your toes over with a lawnmower. What fun we did not have. But here we all are. Forced to play the worst ever drunken party game.

THREAD

2. So as we while away our time, whooping it up from lockdown, wondering at the next national crisis, let us ponder this week’s existential question: how can a Brexit deal be so close and yet so far away?

3. Is it close? Is it far away? Are we doomed or saved? And even if we’re saved are we in fact doomed?

It’s all too much. Like playing zenga with no twig things or scrabble with no letters. My head is spinning. Pass me the whisky and egg my nog.

4. To generalize (why not, everyone else does) Brexit commentary tends to fall into two illustrious camps both full of the wisest of sages.

5. The first reflects upon Mr Johnson’s character and political track record, the many hard as you like pronouncements emanating from various government orifices and the most peculiar composition of the Conservative Party, to arrive at an understandably unhappy conclusion.
BREXIT
Objective Columnist
Objective Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
1. Some thoughts about picking over the bones of the referendum loss.

TLDR - get over it, move on, and most importantly, find a better strategy.

2. From an analytical perspective, I don’t think there’s much point in constantly assessing the referendum.

3. The answer is either so simple as to be banal (bad campaign etc) or too complicated (deep rooted societal roots etc) as not to provide any simple lessons. In any case, the result was very close.

4. Rather than dwell on the past, live in the future. Influencing what happens next is much more important than focusing on historic defeat.

5. You don’t see current Brexiteers lamenting the woeful state of their plans do you?
HEALTH
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Objective Columnist
Objective Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
I find it very strange that the same sort of people who look back on the financial crisis and austerity as catalysts for great change now seem to see Brexit and Covid as catalysts for great stability.

Partisanship is one helluva drug. Financial crisis = bad crisis. Brexit = good crisis. Even Covid, unequivocally a bad crisis, is characterised in parts as a good crisis (world beating vaccine etc).

A different reading (which spans Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments) is that 2008-2021 has been one continuous period of crisis punctuated by shorter periods of calm.

Crises aren’t the exception. Scottish independence and the future status of NI look ahead. They are the rule. More specifically, whether the crises are endogenous or exogenous the state has proven woefully ineffective at dealing with them.

We are meant to try to learn from this. And do our best not to apply partisan blinkers. The problems are deeply rooted. And, very obviously, Brexit isn’t the fix. It’s an attempt at a cure but in the same way as a radical therapy that solves some problems but creates others.
FINANCE
Yet Another Columnist
Yet Another Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
One wonders how long Lord Frost will retain his new position. The personnel decisions made by the PM are nothing if not frequent, ruthless and mercurial.

The whole affair is very curious. While I am sure that Lord Frost’s elevation owes much to his relationship with the PM and the perceived success of the Brexit negotiation, it is very curious indeed that allegedly it took a threat to resign to secure this new role.

A role which is needed (although might have been structured differently) but was to a large effect previously undertaken (with reasonable success) by Michael Gove who one might imagine may not be entirely happy with this diminishment of his responsibilities.

What might have happened to have resulted in this dramatic and to some extent destructive move (which appears to have been played out in the context of a wider struggle that saw Oliver Lewis (previously Lord Frost’s (LF) negotiation deputy)?

The original sin, of course, is the agreement to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Who knows who did what to who or thought what about what but my speculation is the PM either did not understand the consequences of the Protocol or was assured they could be successfully addressed.
SOCIETY
Yet Another Columnist
Yet Another Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
Typically excellent piece from @dsquareddigest The exponential insight is especially neat. Think of it a little like fishing...today you can’t export oysters to the EU (because you simply aren’t allowed to), tomorrow you don’t have a fish exporting business (to the EU).


The extremely small minority of people who known anything about this who think that Brexit will be good for the City make a number of arguments which I shall address in turn...

1. They need us more than we need them. This is a variant of the German carmakers argument. And we know how that went...Business will follow the profit opportunity and if that has moved then so will the business...

And what do we mean by us / we. We’re not talking about massed ranks of Euro investing / trading etc blue blooded British institutions.

Au contraire. We’re talking about the London based subs of US, Asian and indeed European capital markets players...As soon as they think the profit opportunity has moved then so will they...it’s a market innit...
GOVERNMENT

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Ed Birkett
Ed Birkett
@ed_birkett
What's in the EU-UK Brexit deal on energy?

It may be Boxing day, but I've had a quick look

Title VIII: Energy is the key section (page 156 onwards)

▶️ Standard stuff on commitment to competition, unbundling and customer choice

▶️ UK Capacity Market no longer needs to try to integrate overseas Capacity providers & vice versa

(Article ENER.6, Clause 3, page. 160)

2/


▶️ Existing "exemptions" for selected interconnectors will continue to apply.

This means that these interconnectors can continue to sell capacity rights ahead of time, rather than all through close to real-time markets.

(Article ENER.11, page 162)

3/


▶️ No network charges on individual interconnector transactions (as now)

▶️ But, UK cannot participate in EU procedures for capacity allocation and congestion management (more on this later)

(Article ENER.13, page 163)

4/


Gas trading: looks like the UK stays in the existing PRISMA gas trading platform.

Not my specialist area, but is this because PRISMA isn't an EU institution (unlike electricity market coupling)?

https://t.co/5GQJtZDpTa

(Article ENER. 15, page 164)

5/
BREXIT
David Henig
David Henig
@DavidHenigUK
Ten days in and it seems the government's post-Brexit economic policy is to ignore reality, priority and choice, and just claim with no evidence that everything is going to be great. This, needless to say, is dangerous territory. Exhibit 1... 1/

Here's a good example of what is currently passing for UK economic policy. The theory the UK can be 'nimble' in regulations has been present since 2016. In 5 years nobody has found the detail. We presume others might have a similar idea. And trade needs regulations to align 2/


There will of course always be someone to blame. Usually the EU. Because they do indeed want to compete with the UK. This is not exactly surprising. A vague UK idea versus the bigger next door market (or indeed a big one over the pond). Who's going to win? 3/


Next, 'Global Britain' and specifically the Liz Truss speech in the Commons yesterday. To summarise, we are going to do trade deals on everything with everyone while still protecting UK industry and poor countries. Yup, more warm words and no priorities.

Useful example here. The long running EU-US trade battle over food, one claiming to be about quality, the other science. The UK solution. We'll do both! Fabulous, why did nobody think of this before? Unless they did, and found they still had to choose. Note other warm words 5/
BREXIT
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Phil Syrpis
Phil Syrpis
@syrpis
There are a lot of Brexiters in the media this week making points about sovereignty, and about how the EU has not come to terms with the UK's independence.

I have some questions, which it might well be fruitful to ask them. 1/9

1. How do you understand the concept of sovereignty? What are the circumstances in which you might agree to make binding commitments to other independent states or trading blocs? 2/

2. What sort of commitments are you prepared to make in order to get trade deals with other states/blocs? And, to what end (why not trade on Australian-style terms with the wider world)? 3/

3. Do you accept that the EU has the right to impose its own rules as a condition for access to its market? Given the UK's involvement in the single market, and in the creation of its regulatory infrastructure, this feature should not come as a surprise. 4/

4. Do you accept that there is a need for borders (which were not needed while the UK was part of the single market) between states/blocs with different regulatory regimes? 5/
BREXIT
Richard Wilson
Richard Wilson
@timomouse
A not-so-little thread on how post-Brexit work permit regulations will apply in Scottish football and why it’s, broadly, not a good thing...

1) Work permit calculations are based on the points formula from this site - https://t.co/sjqx8Df7Zg

As things stand, while this article deals with England, the system applies to Scotland also.

The goal is 15 points and the article shows various ways to get there. Essentially, play regularly internationally or in a top 5 league and you’re in. But read the article because it’s a bit trickier than that.

2) There are elements of this I’d dispute. For example, here’s the banding of leagues and, lower down, it’s an absolute mess - Denmark (ranked 14 in coefficient table) and Serbia (16) banded lower than Croatia (20), Greece (18) and Czechs (19)? It’s wholly random.


I get the point that leagues should be banded, but there doesn’t seem to have been loads of sense applied to how these things are actually banded, rather they’ve just shoved a bunch of leagues together and hoped for the best.
BREXIT
Peter Foster
Peter Foster
@pmdfoster
🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🚛🍤🐟🥬📦✈️🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨
So here it is. After the euphoria, the @FinancialTimes @FTMag long read of how @BorisJohnson did his Trade deal with the EU. Tl:dr...not so much “build back better”, more “build back the borders” - stay with me/1.

@FTMag @BorisJohnson The really under-appreciated part of this story is the extent to which the Johnson government, having won its 80 seat majority promising to "Get Brexit Done" then explicitly and actively chose the hardest possible version of #brexit in defiance of commercial interests /2

@FTMag @BorisJohnson Our story begins in January last year when David Frost commenced what Whitehall insiders call a "Star Chamber" process to strip away anything that might be considered more than a "Canada-style" deal - regardless of the fact that UK doesn't trade with EU like Canada! /3


@FTMag @BorisJohnson So what did that mean in practice?

Well, for example leaving EU aviation safety agency (EASA); Chemicals agency (ECHA), not getting a waiver of 'safety and security' declarations for hauliers, not seeking special arrangements for animal products...on and on it goes /4

@FTMag @BorisJohnson Didn't industry object? Well yes it did - but those who yelled too hard found themselves shut out of the door.

Did Whitehall object? Yes it did - Defra and Beis and Treasury all tried at some level to temper the revolutionary fury. But mostly failed. /5
BREXIT

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