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.
Either way, it is his responsibility. I’m not sure the consequences of the Protocol are fully understood. The PM has successfully delivered Brexit, his mission statement, but in so doing has presided over, willed and in effect approved a rupture in the union.
My suspicion is that this is taken very seriously indeed. And as a result any wheeze, scheme, idea etc that contributes to addressing the (in this context) faults of the NIP, this rupture of the union, receives a very friendly audience (also see the IMB).
A short while ago, a very strange event occurred. As part of its new vaccine export policy, the EU almost triggered / triggered and then retracted A16. This foolish misstep rightly received considerable opprobrium.
HMG saw this as an opportunity to address its issues with the NIP. This might have been advanced quietly or loudly. We saw a ‘loud’ response in the letter Gove sent to Maros Sefcovic, the tone of which was reminiscent of the combative Vote Leave approach to the negotiations.
But then something surprising happened. The letter’s sabre rattling seems all but forgotten when after the Gove / Sefcovic meeting both sides issue a joint statement in which they talk of their ‘frank but constructive discussion’ and state their ‘full commitment’ to the NIP.
The combative rhetoric is abandoned, the temperature is lowered, and the primacy of the NIP as the legal and political context in which all related issues must be solved is upheld, in the process diminishing the practical viability of A16 as an instrument to effect change.
You can perhaps look at this in 2 ways. Either (i) HMG (represented by Gove) missed a huge opportunity to address the offending parts of the NIP or (ii) the opportunity was hugely overstated, the letter did more harm than good, and as a result HMG / the EU decided to move on.
Either way, and yes perhaps for many other different reasons (this is all speculation) just over a week later Michael Gove’s EU responsibilities are transferred to Lord Frost who becomes cabinet minister responsible for the relationship with the EU. /ends

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I tend to agree with this - of course many things can still go wrong...but (certainly on the UK side) as the list of outstanding issues decreases and as the cost of no deal becomes more apparent deal momentum will increase.


I find it most amusing that people invest so much value in public statements, briefings, tabloid headlines, the tweets of obscure backbenchers etc. Cherchez les fundamentals!

There is a deep vein of analytical pessimism in one particular direction, which, whether correct or not, is noteworthy. On the one hand, a firm belief in the fundamentals - gravity exists - but on the other hand those fundamentals are not meaningful to the final decision.

But gravity does exist! Whether one likes it or not. We do not have wings. Or feathers. And the realisation of the fundamentals will impact the political calculation (though timing differences may apply).

You don’t have to invest any particular optimism or see any virtue in the principal players to make this point.
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...

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A long thread on how an obsessive & violent antisemite & Holocaust denier has been embraced by the international “community of the good.”

Sarah Wilkinson has a history of Holocaust denial & anti-Jewish hatred dating back (in documented examples) to around 2015.


She is a self-proclaimed British activist for “Palestinian rights” but is more accurately a far Left neo-Nazi. Her son shares the same characteristics of violence, racism & Holocaust denial.

I first documented Sarah Wilkinson’s Holocaust denial back in July 2016. I believe I was the 1st person to do so.

Since then she has produced a long trail of written hate and abuse. See here for a good summary.


Wilkinson has recently been publicly celebrated by @XRebellionUK over her latest violent action against a Jewish owned business. Despite many people calling XR’s attention to her history, XR have chosen to remain in alliance with this neo-Nazi.

Former Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP is among those who also chose to stand with Wilkinson via a tweet.

But McDonnell is not alone.

Neo-Nazi Sarah Wilkinson is supported and encouraged by thousands of those on the Left who consider themselves “anti-racists”.
Like most movements, I have learned that the definition of feminism has expanded to include simply treating women like human beings.

(A thread for whoever feels like reading)


I have observed feminists on Twitter advocating for rape victims to be heard, rapists to be held accountable, for people to address the misogyny that is deeply rooted in our culture, and for women to be treated with respect.

To me, very easy things to get behind.

And the amount of pushback they receive for those very basic requests is appalling. I see men trip over themselves to defend rape and rapists and misogyny every chance they get. Some accounts are completely dedicated to harassing women on this site. It’s unhealthy.

Furthermore, I have observed how dedicated these misogynists are by how they treat other men that do not immediately side with them. There is an entire lexicon they have created for men who do not openly treat women with disrespect.

Ex: simp, cuck, white knight, beta

All examples of terms they use to demean a man who respects women.

To paraphrase what a wise man on this app said:

Some men hate women so much, they hate men who don’t hate women

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.