Am prompted to do this 🧵 following @BEERG sharing of Gove 19 April’16 speech, @kevinhorourke observation on interests & ideas & @CER_Grant observation that historians will ponder the weakness of economic interests in Brexit negs at @InstituteGC yesterday @BrigidLaffan

1. Seems to me that @BorisJohnson has delivered on the @michaelgove 2016 speech in one important sense-not the sunny uplands of Brexit but the working out of what Brexit was to this clique who drove the Leave campaign @BrigidLaffan
2. That was a total rejection of the #EU model of internationalisation, its governance regimes, institutions, regulatory frameworks, its ideals & the political, economic & legal order it represents. @BrigidLaffan
3. This was evident in tone of Brexit negs, for example @DavidGHFrost dismissal of EU as ā€˜your organisation’ @MichelBarnier & refusal to recognise nature of EU re. Diplomatic states. Treating it an as IO despite the fact that there were U.K. MEPs in @Europarl_EN @BrigidLaffan
4. Evident also in refusal of a chapter on foreign & security policy & the preference for bilateral relations particularly the key capitals post Brexit. @BrigidLaffan
5. #UK negotiating strategy was driven by anything but the EU aka @pmdfoster wonderful long read on the negs. Core principle was to prove you can do a deal with EU without its laws. Not smart-of@course you can but it will be a thin thin deal @BrigidLaffan
6. The desire to by pass & diminish EU as a polity will not serve @BorisJohnson or U.K. in the short or medium term. EU is both the member states & the collective. You can’t have one without the other. @BrigidLaffan
7. There will be no strategic relationship unless London comes to terms with the EU & begins to understand what it means to its near neighbours. Not just Brussels or bureaucracy but the way this part of the world handles the challenges of 21st century @BrigidLaffan
8. Brexiteers might prefer it were other but #EU is going nowhere & London needs a strategy for dealing with it as it is-a hybrid political system with market power. It will prove easier for Irish business to go around U.K. than it will for U.K. to avoid coming to terms with EU

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Imagine if Christians actually had to live according to their Bibles.


Imagine if Christians actually sacrificed themselves for the good of those they considered their enemies, with no thought of any recompense or reward, but only to honor the essential humanity of all people.

Imagine if Christians sold all their possessions and gave it to the poor.

Imagine if they relentlessly stood up for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

Imagine if they worshipped a God whose response to political power was to reject it.

Or cancelled all debt owed them?

Imagine if the primary orientation of Christians was what others needed, not what they deserved.

Imagine Christians with no interest in protecting what they had.

Imagine Christians who made room for other beliefs, and honored the truths they found there.

Imagine Christians who saved their forgiveness and mercy for others, rather than saving it for themselves.

Whose empathy went first to the abused, not the abuser.

Who didn't see tax as theft; who didn't need to control distribution of public good to the deserving.

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