As someone whose been researching BREXT, TRUMP + RUSSIA for a couple of years, it's pretty amazing to see the media suddenly starting to ring alarm bells - after yesterday's FASCIST COUP attempt! Too many have been positively incurious or complicit with boosting TRUMP + BREXIT.

I’m going to reproduce @3days3nights posts here for backup and to do a full unroll afterwards. All credit goes to him! - P1

Ireland's foreign min @SimonCoveney says there will be no breakthru at the #euco this wk, that EU fishermen will not be "sold out" in order to secure a future relationship deal, and that if there is a deal it will not be ratified unless the UK "remove" Internal Mkt Bill clauses

2/ Speaking at the General Affairs Council Mr Coveney said: “We value fishermen, we value their contribution across the EU and cerainly EU fishermen are not going to be sold out in an effort to get an agreement on a future relationship with the UK on trade.”

3/ He said that while there had been some progress on the level playing field area, there had been “little or no” movement on fisheries. Both sides, he said, had legitimate concerns on the issue.

4/ Mr Coveney had bilateral meetings with both @MichelBarnier and @MarosSefcovic

5/ “There was a very clear message that if we do manage to negotiate a deal on a future relationship agreement that involves many different areas, before that deal can be ratified or finalised, the domestic legislation that the UK has introduced...

1. It surprises me that on the whole pro Europeans on Twitter view themselves as pragmatists, who rely on evidence to form their opinion.
In fact a long running joke in our 'group' is that Brexit will be a roaring success, if we all just believe hard it will be a roaring success.

2. The last couple of weeks have made it clearer than ever that blind belief that is impervious to evidence and facts is not a leave/remain thing. It's a human thing

3. I was accused of lying and hounding a 'vulnerable' person off Twitter. When the victims of that 'vulnerable' got the same treatment, it became necessary to take action.

4. So I gathered evidence (not all, but enough) and wrote a blog with contributions from several others. Then the blog was checked by experts to ensure that it was neither libellous (to protect authors) or a risk to any possible legal action (to protect victims).

5. I naively thought that would put an end to the false accusations and trolling.
Since publishing I've been accused of having called the "vulnerable' person and threatened members of their family, forcing them to confess to the police

Update from MEP @PeterLiese, health spokesman for the largest party in the EU Parliament (thread):

He maintains #AstraZeneca is treating people in EU as "2nd class citizens" and that doses have gone from the EU to the UK.

"They gave 3 different explanations in less than a week"

Carrot: He's says objections are with AZ behaviour, not vaccine's efficacy

"There's been a lot of talk about AZ being a bad vaccine - very strange fake news in German media. It's definitely not true"

"If someone offered me AZ, and it’s my turn, I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute"

“The AstraZeneca vaccine has not as good data as the vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna but still it is a good vaccine. In October, we would have been happy to have a vaccine that has an efficiency well above 50%."

Stick: "AZ gave 3⃣ different explanations in less than a week why there is a shortage of supply on the European continent and why they want to deliver only 31 million doses instead of 80 million that they committed to in the contract until the end of March."

1⃣ "1st explanation was different supply chains. This is wrong because in contract with the EU, two plants in the UK are mentioned for the supply on the continent and at least until a few days ago the final finishing of the vaccine [for UK] has been in a plant in Dessau, Germany"

As is traditional for this time of year, and more in hope than expectation, my top ten trade / Brexit hopes for 2021...

1 - The UK Government ditches the unnecessary secrecy and engages much more openly with business, NGOs etc about their priorities, and reflects them

2 - Parliament steps up its game on government scrutiny beyond select committee reports and starts expecting answers on why priorities have been chosen, why trade agreements with which countries, what the content should be etc

3 - UK business do their best to keep on exporting and importing, innovating and partnering, to overcome the new barriers in their way, and also to keep shouting for government to remove barriers as they arise

4 - Brexiteers show even the vaguest hint of interest in the views of those who continue to want strong ties with the EU, rather then repeating over and over again, to even the vaguest hint of criticism, "you lost suckers, get over it"

5 - Remainers, rejoiners and the like stop talking quite so much about how the 2016 referendum was stolen from them, which is becoming both history and suggests that 17 odd million people were conned

(NB not confident on the last two)