Just read @MarinaHyde's recent piece. The list of fuck ups is endless, I can't honestly begin to say how sad my own country and government have made me. From the covid deaths, bungled exams and lack of ppe (remember that?) To brexit and fishing rights. My colleague voted for ...

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,

The fuel injected Brexiter comments on the EU's vaccine problems miss many points.

1) no-one wanted to get out of the EU or the single market to protect ourselves better against a pandemic. See Brexit Tory controlled government policy 2016-2020 regarding the NHS and pandemic preparedness.

2) we could have, and, perhaps thanks to the need to genuflect to nationalists, or out of pragmatic needs, chosen to go our own way on procurement even within the EU.

3) none of this explains why it's good to be outside the single market, restricting our trade and making us poorer.

4) the implicit celebration of the vaccine nationalist cause, seemingly [but not actually] permitted by Brexit, ignores how this game plays out, namely:

Just bringing together my various bits and pieces on the UK-EU. The first reactions - a significant agreement...

Winners and losers of the UK-EU deal.

Why this was always going to be a problem - regulatory soverignty v free trade involves trade offs...

Going back to mid-2019, why the deal the UK wanted from the EU, the same benefits with none of the costs, couldn't be available.

More recently, why the Brexit dream is dying - because it wasn't designed to deal with a situation where we had to choose between trade with the EU and freedom.

How to make sense of the increasing number of UK-EU trade disruption stories?

In short - outside of a single market product checks and people working restrictions are inevitable. And outside a customs union you will have tariffs and / or rules of origin.

Detail ---> 1/

The UK decided to leave a Customs Union. Within that Customs Union, no tariffs, just a common external tariff or preferential rates for bilateral deals or developing countries. Hence, distribution hubs in one country for all make a lot of sense. 2/

Outside a Customs Union our choice was tariffs under WTO rules or remove them subject to rules of origin with a deal. We chose the latter, but it means we can't just import from China, rebadge, and get zero tariffs from the EU. As we could until December 31. 3/

Net result of being outside of the Customs Union - it no longer makes sense for the UK to be a distribution hub for the whole of Europe. Particularly when so many neighbouring countries remain in it. No trade deal changes that. 4/

Now, product checks, of the sort causing problems for food exporters (see Scottish seafood). In the single market, we shared regulations, so a safe product in the UK was safe in France. No inspections. We chose to leave that system, as we want to change some regulations. 5/