At today's Future Relationship with the European Union Committee - we're hearing from @CSBarnard24 that the deal has a slightly "alice in wonderland quality" about it - nothing really appears quite as it first looks. If you compare to what we had until 1 Jan, it falls short. 1/

The chart-topping band of @ChrisGiles_ @jimbrunsden (me on drums) have a piece up about the Brexit level playing field stand-off. But here's the thing: the opacity surrounding these (as so many) trade talks is making things much worse. Quick 🧵

One of the things that struck me talking to experts about this was a lot of hedging about "this is what I think the EU means" and "this is what the UK appears to believe". There's lots of jargon (non-regression, ratchet, equivalence etc) capable of multiple meanings. (2/n)

And even if the negotiators have been clear with each other about what they mean, they certainly aren't being transparent with their domestic constituencies: the EU member states and Westminster MPs aren't being given full details about exactly what's being proposed. (3/n)

There's an unhelpful culture of secrecy around almost all trade talks. Few texts are released along the way. The standard reason is so not to give away negotiating positions to the other side. This is, to use a technical WTO term, obvious bollocks. (4/n)

If you're not telling the other side what you're proposing, you aren't negotiating, are you? Duh. The function of secrecy is actually to hide from the public what's going on. But how are you supposed to build domestic consensus around a proposal no-one can see? (5/n)

Here is thread with few facts relevant to current drama on Brexit deal or rather more likely NO DEAL - FOR NOW!
1.) If we have to go to ‘no deal’ (/Australia deal) we will be doing what most members of World Trade Organisation (WTO - covering virtually every country in world) do.

2/ 2/3rds of trading in world is done under WTO rules. USA exports more than UK does to EU but does so under WTO rules; so does China.
2.) If tariffs have to be imposed under ‘no deal’ WTO rules, the EU will pay £12bn in tariffs a year and the U.K. £5bn (ref: Civitas) -

3/ (ref: Civitas) - because tariffs hit mostly agricultural EU goods, such as 40% on cheeses & 12% on wine;
3.) The £12bn income from tariffs will come to UK Treasury, not Brussels. Effectively these will be UK consumer taxes that could perhaps go towards reducing COVID debt?;

4/ 4.) 43% of UK exports do yes go to EU; but this is small proportion of our actual economy: only 7.5% UK GDP are goods exports to EU; 13.5% with services. Only 8% UK companies even trade with EU. (@BBCNews please show balance on this). Most of our trade is internal within UK.

5/ over 2/3rds (SNP take note!); so tariffs will effect a small proportion of UK exports (though some sectors will be hit hard;
5.) By definition, 57% of U.K. exports go to Rest of the World. Growth outside of Europe is forecast to be 90% of all growth over next 15-20 years.

I've been tweeting a lot about UK #OverseasTerritories not being part of the #Brexit deal and a bit more has emerged ...

#Falklands MLA @teslynbark has answered a q about #Brexit and the #Falklands on fb - highlights:

1 Original UK EU mandate didn't include OTs except for Gibraltar.

2 In May, EU said they didn't have a mandate to negotiate for their OTs and wouldn't negotiate on UK OT issues.

(2 possibly explains what @BorisJohnson said about EU "intransigence" in his Christmas message to the #Falklands, but wasn't mentioned when he replied to a pmq from @DerekTwiggMP earlier in the month)

3 @teslynbark says that @falklandsgov held that the new spirit of negotiations that evolved through the year gave space for #Falklands interests to be raised in #BrexitDeal talks and asking for detail on how they were raised by UK Government ...

4 @teslynbark says future negotiations with the EU aren't held to the same mandate as before so @falklandsgov to keep pushing to have #Falklands trade concerns raised