Remember the government wanting to "follow the science"? It is remarkable how far it is ignoring scientific advice on this new ultra-infectious variant of #Covid-19 by keeping schools open... both SAGE and @imperialcollege issuing warnings on school closures. Stay with me. /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

🚨🚨🚚🚛🚨🚨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

NEW. 🚨🚨🚛🇬🇧🙄🚛🚚🚨🚨 clear signs govt is preparing for coming #brexit turbulence - consulting on new fast-track scheme for food lorries returning to Europe /1



The idea is that 300 lorries a day will be granted 'fast track' permits so they can go back EU and replenish supplies...this is because (see below) the gov fears that potential for disruption is "high" /2

The 8-page consultation document notes this is both because of #Brexit but also because of #COVID19 and continued French insistence on checks on all drivers from UK. /3

Lots arriving in Kent without clear tests SO separately Dept for Transport is considering £150 fines for drivers that don't have clean tests before entering Kent - problem, say hauliers, is that this requires communicating with EU-based drivers (85% from EU) /4

The govt is worried that disruptions will risk the kind of panic-buying we saw in early #COVID19 pandemic /5

Riley J. Williams is charged in the Capitol riot.
She allegedly stole a computer from @SpeakerPelosi’s office, & now @FBI is investigating a tip that she intended to send the computer to a friend in Russia who’d sell it to Russian intelligence.
Williams appears to have “fled”.

From the affidavit against her: Riley Williams’ former romantic partner called the FBI several times in the days following the riots to report that they had seen her in videos inside the Capitol, but friends of Williams had shown the tipster a video of Williams taking a laptop...

... computer or hard drive from Speaker Pelosi’s office. The witness told the FBI that “WILLIAMS intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service...”

“... but that the transfer of the computer device to Russia fell through for unknown reasons and Williams still has the computer device or destroyed it. “This matter remains under investigation.”

Williams has appeared to have fled, she packed a bag & did not tell her mother where she was going but said she would be gone for a couple of weeks. She has changed her telephone number & deleted what are believed to have been her social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram...

Thread:

Here is a wake up call for those Republicans who believe we're going to take back the House in 2022 and the Presidency in 2024:

You will never win another election in the next 50 years.
The election fraud system perfected by the Democrats and their Deep State agents planted by the Obama cabal was put in place before the 2016 mid term and it is working perfectly.

It worked in 2016 when the GOP lost the House despite Trump being at the height of his popularity and the economy roaring back to life after 8 long years of depression;

It worked in November 2020 when Biden, an elderly man suffering from dementia was declared the winner with 1.5 million more votes than the young, charismatic and energetic Democratic Party political rock star Obama ever had cast for him in both elections he won;

And it worked in 2021 in GA run-offs, after the GOP candidates who were in the lead all day, they got defeated after vote dumps that happened after the counting closed for the day in a repeat of the scenario that happened during the Presidential election.

South African science was crucial in helping UK discover its new variants; but then the UK govt claimed (wrongly) that the SA variant is more transmissible. No evidence to support this, according to @krisp_news

From the Times article: SA scientists "were the first to recognize the importance of a genetic change in the spike protein, something that allows the virus to attach more easily to human cells, making it more infectious than the original version."

The SA discovery was shared on Dec 4 over the WHO’s Covid-19 Evolution Working Group. “Our British colleagues were able to go back to their own databases and interrogate them as a result of the work we shared,” Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases specialist at Krisp, said.

More from the Times article by @janeflan: "While working on a much smaller budget than their British colleagues, the South African team, experienced with work on HIV, have the skills to decode the genome of viruses."

"They started work on samples of the Covid-19 virus soon after the first cases reached South Africa in March. In October they identified the first example that had changed significantly."

THREAD: So @UKLabour think they can win back the red wall by "use of the union flag, veterans & dressing smartly?" Here's why this is ludicrous fantasy

1. You don't "use" the union flag & especially veterans. You believe in them, from the patriotic heart. Anything else is lies

2. How can Keir Starmer pretend to love the Union flag, when he knelt to BLM, who set fire to it at the Cenotaph? No way will patriots swallow this co-opting of the flag for votes

3. Labour MPs are secretly or even openly ashamed of our flag & history, esp Corbynistas

4. Labour want to win back working class voters? First, believe in Brexit. Except Starmer led Labour's #PeoplesVote movement to cancel Brexit & most Labour MPs are ardent Remainers, so there goes that one

5. Labour are so soaked in identity politics, their top brass believe the white working classes are "privileged" - even though WWC boys are the least likely to go to Uni & perform worst at school. Instead, they are fixated with minority projects, so get minority numbers of votes

6. Trans issues: huge majority of British people are not "transphobic" & want people to live happily. But they don't want trans women in women's toilets, jails, changing rooms or sports. That is a majority position. Crying "transphobe" doesn't help: it repels moderate voters

In LEFT TO DIE, we document how families of the disappeared face a negligent and hostile Border Patrol search and rescue response system.

Lacking adequate government emergency services, many seek help from aid groups.

Border Patrol routinely obstructs these efforts. 🧵⬇️

Families often receive urgent calls from loved ones who are lost and in distress in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, or from an eyewitness who was with them in the desert.

These calls can contain crucial details regarding the person’s location and medical condition.

Faced with an inadequate and discriminatory emergency response system controlled by Border Patrol, family members take on the monumental work of acting as emergency first responders.

Here’s a partial list of actions family members have taken to locate their missing loved ones...

1. Repeatedly calling police, Border Patrol, ICE offices, hospitals, detention centers, morgues, immigration attorneys, non-profits, and news outlets.

2. Taking out missing persons ads, putting up posters, searching and posting on the Internet, in hopes of hearing word of their loved ones whereabouts.