Irish foreign min Simon Coveney says he is "more optimistic" about progress in the EU UK Joint Committee over implementing the Northern Ireland Protocol.

2/ Last night @rtenews reported that if a free trade deal were to be concluded, a sequence would be put in place at the end of which the UK would drop the clauses in the Internal Market Bill which breach the Protocol. https://t.co/i2HRV6WqEE
3/ This morning, the EU’s representative on the Joint Committee, which implements the Protocol, said he would be meeting his counterpart Michael Gove in Brussels today. https://t.co/WkRwFefAXu
4/ Mr Coveney said: “There is more cause to be optimistic and positive in the context of the Joint Committee and its work in terms of implementing the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.
5/ “Maros Sefcovic and Michael Gove have made really practical progress on many of the outstanding issues that were not resolved up until a few weeks ago.
6/ “So, I think they are making progress there and my view certainly is, if we could make progress on the broader trade agreement and the future relationship agreement, I think the outstanding issues linked to the Protocol certainly could be resolved.”
7/ Mr Coveney added: “If they could be resolved then the need for the offensive elements of the IMB and potentially offensive elements of a financial/taxation piece of legislation may not be necessary at all.
8/ “Our view is that they are not not necessary either way because they are breaking international law, but from a British perspective those issues may be resolved.”
9/ However, the minister said the sequencing was now “two steps away from where we are today.”
10/ “I think if there is not progress on a trade agreement that avoids tariffs and quotas then the agreed implementation of the Protocol through the Joint Committee becomes more difficult as well."

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1/ Imagine that as soon as the referendum result the EU announced that it was looking forward to the end of free movement of UK citizens in the EU


2/ Imagine if the EU said finally all those retired Brits in the EU27 could go home

3/ Imagine if the EU said finally all those Brits in the EU could stop driving down wages, taking jobs and stop sending benefits back to the UK

4/ Imagine if the EU said it was looking to use UK citizens as “bargaining chips” to get a better trade deal

5/ Imagine if the EU told UK citizens in the EU27 that they could no longer rely on established legal rights and they would have to apply for a new status which they have to pay for for less rights
"3 million people are estimated not to have official photo ID, with ethnic minorities more at risk". They will "have to contact their council to confirm their ID if they want to vote"

This is shameful legislation, that does nothing to tackle the problems with UK elections.THREAD


There is no evidence in-person voter fraud is a problem, and it wd be near-impossible to organise on an effective scale. Campaign finance violations, digital disinformation & manipulation of postal voting are bigger issues, but these are crimes of the powerful, not the powerless.

In a democracy, anything that makes it harder to vote - in particular, anything that disadvantages one group of voters - should face an extremely high bar. Compulsory voter ID takes a hammer to 3 million legitimate voters (disproportionately poor & BAME) to crack an imaginary nut

If the government is concerned about the purity of elections, it should reflect on its own conduct. In 2019 it circulated doctored news footage of an opponent, disguised its twitter feed as a fake fact-checking site, and ran adverts so dishonest that even Facebook took them down.

Britain's electoral law largely predates the internet. There is little serious regulation of online campaigning or the cash that pays for it. That allows unscrupulous campaigners to ignore much of the legal framework erected since the C19th to guard against electoral misconduct.

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