BC BREXIT
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

A quote from this excellent piece, neatly summarising a core impact of Brexit.

The Commission’s view, according to several sources, is that Brexit means existing distribution networks and supply chains are now defunct and will have to be replaced by other systems.

 Of course, this was never written on the side of a bus. And never acknowledged by government. Everything was meant to be broadly fine apart from the inevitable teething problems.
It was, however, visible from space to balanced observers. You did not have to be a trade specialist to understand that replacing the Single Market with a third country trade arrangement meant the end of many if not all of the complex arrangements optimised for the former.
In the absence of substantive mitigations, the Brexit winners are those who subscribe to some woolly notion of ‘sovereignty’ and those who did not like freedom of movement. The losers are everyone else.
But, of course, that’s not good enough. For understandable reasons Brexit was sold as a benefit not a cost. The trading benefits of freedom would far outweigh the costs. Divergence would benefit all.
It’s pretty obvious that the damaged caused by the impairment of a country’s previous competitive advantage will not be repaired overnight. It’s also clear that the development of a new form of competitive advantage is much more than signing a few trade agreements.
Drastic steps will be required. Wholesale deregulation is the most obvious path. Otherwise what was the point of this Brexit? Consider it an experiment. Is it possible to build a shiny new political economy on the shores of the European hegemon?
Radicalism is required (this is the Cummings thesis). And as the state and the economy are remodelled, the path is smoothed by gigantic state subsidies to favoured industries. The cynical might note that this is not exactly conservative.
The problem is that this grand plan is astronomically unlikely (though not impossible). To begin with, it is probably not consistent with the new trade deal which would need to be abandoned with all the additional grief that would bring.
More fundamentally, the public seems to have little appetite for radical deregulation. And finally, there is no evidence in government of the sort of experience and intellectual acumen required to come close to making this plan work. Quite the opposite, as the pandemic has shown.

More from Objective Columnist

Objective Columnist
Objective Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
I have a memory of @anandMenon1 et al writing about a TM deal being greeted with a surge of ‘it’s a deal’ goodwill (it wasn’t) but the argument seems to hold true for the current deal.

Some of it is relief that we have all avoided no deal although I’d argue that much of the no deal furore was prestidigitation (as it has always been).

Some of it is exhaustion. Everyone (apart from enthusiasts and lunatics) is very tired indeed, especially after this annus horrificis.

Everyone wants to move on. Labour is a great example. That they were going to vote for the deal was visible from space. If Labour can banish the twin albatrosses of Corbyn and Brexit then, hey presto, it becomes competitive again.

So almost overnight a new consensus seems to form. The Christmas gift isn’t just a deal it’s a new beginning, again.
POLITICS
Objective Columnist
Objective Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
I find it very strange that the same sort of people who look back on the financial crisis and austerity as catalysts for great change now seem to see Brexit and Covid as catalysts for great stability.

Partisanship is one helluva drug. Financial crisis = bad crisis. Brexit = good crisis. Even Covid, unequivocally a bad crisis, is characterised in parts as a good crisis (world beating vaccine etc).

A different reading (which spans Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments) is that 2008-2021 has been one continuous period of crisis punctuated by shorter periods of calm.

Crises aren’t the exception. Scottish independence and the future status of NI look ahead. They are the rule. More specifically, whether the crises are endogenous or exogenous the state has proven woefully ineffective at dealing with them.

We are meant to try to learn from this. And do our best not to apply partisan blinkers. The problems are deeply rooted. And, very obviously, Brexit isn’t the fix. It’s an attempt at a cure but in the same way as a radical therapy that solves some problems but creates others.
FINANCE
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Objective Columnist
Objective Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
Along the way I wrote about considering Johnson’s Brexit decision as a choice between clichéd narratives. What would read / play best? Well...


It is absolutely no surprise to me that he ended up choosing the ending that would most easily portray him as the hero who saved the day.

The tricky part of this narrative is convincing re the ‘not giving in’ part. Hence all the bluster about standing tough and being happy to walk away.

And yet.

I’m old enough to remember when we wouldn’t accept any LPF provisions, any state aid constraints and we wanted all our fish back right now. Otherwise it’s an ‘Australia’ style Brexit.
BREXIT
Yet Another Columnist
Yet Another Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
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.
SOCIETY
Yet Another Columnist
Yet Another Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
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...
GOVERNMENT

More from Brexit

ScottishPanda
ScottishPanda
@PandaScottish
[thread]

As we approach "the last throw of the dice"

I would like to do something I haven’t done enough of

Congratulations to 37.4% of the electorate

On the 23rd June 2016 you won

Congratulations

No one can take that away from you

You

Indeed I would like to be the first one to congratulate Boris Johnson

Whatever happens in the next few days

Well done Boris

Whether he gets as a deal

Or indeed no deal

Congratulations on the "win"

You will desperately sell what you won was a "win"

If a deal then with a sale of a side measure of scapegoating narrative as to why it wasn't better

If no deal then the side sale will be the scapegoating as to why

As it will always be someone else's fault

Can I firstly apologise - its obviously because I didn't believe enough or talked the country down

I am not certain which will be sold more desperately

A really shitty deal

or no deal
BREXIT
Simon Usherwood
Simon Usherwood
@Usherwood
Your regular reminder that Brexit is going badly because the UK has still to decide what the purpose of leaving the EU is

1/

#EUref came about as piece of party mgt by Cameron, rather than as culmination of considered and structured debate about UK's place in the world

2/

Yes, we talked a lot (A LOT) about 'Europe' and the EU, but primarily as a function of lots of other things

A touchstone of dissent, if you will (h/t @PaulAdamTaggart)

3/

Referendum campaigns on both sides were simply about getting people to vote their way, not efforts to set out settled plans of What Comes Next

"Vote for us and everything will be dandy" is not a plan

4/

That might have been alright if post-vote there had been a national discussion on how to proceed in an inclusive manner, but instead the political logic pointed to trying to capture the meaning of it all to serve particular agendas

All very majoritarian, as per

5/
BREXIT
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Dr Matt Prescott
Dr Matt Prescott
@mattprescott
As someone whose been researching BREXT, TRUMP + RUSSIA for a couple of years, it's pretty amazing to see the media suddenly starting to ring alarm bells - after yesterday's FASCIST COUP attempt! Too many have been positively incurious or complicit with boosting TRUMP + BREXIT.

The number of JOURNALISTS and CITIZEN RESEARCHERS who have been trying to investigate the links between TRUMP, BREXIT and RUSSIA is remarkably small, and so tiny that we have all more or less found each other on Twitter... I think this is shameful.

Below I will try to credit some of the people who have made important contributions and tried to explore different aspects of this terrifying, sophisticated and wide-ranging attack on democracy... Some won't want public acknowledgement because of the associated attacks + dangers.

Carole CADWALLADR : @carolecadwalla : has done more than anyone else to highlight the role of social media, data mining and profiling in attacking DEMOCRACY. Her warnings and scoops have been studiously ignored by many in power.

... a library of Carole's articles can be found here :
BREXIT
Peter Foster
Peter Foster
@pmdfoster
Another head-banging day for the £112bn UK creative sector that is starting to ingest how difficult #Brexit is going to make their lives - and how little the government is really willing to do to fix the lack of a 'mobility' chapter in the EU-UK trade deal. Quick update.../1

First Equity @EquityUK put out a letter to @BorisJohnson warning that #brexit was a "towering hurdle" (you'd want Brian Blessed reading that part) to UK actors plying their trade in EU - a double whammy with #COVID19 /2

https://t.co/mXjTAISqZk


@BorisJohnson One third of Equity members say they've seen job ads asking for EU passport holders: "Before, we were able to travel to Europe visa-free. Now we have to pay hundreds of pounds, fill in form after form, and spend weeks waiting for approval" /3

@BorisJohnson Worth recalling that all this goes back to the UK desire NOT to have a 'mobility' provision within the TCA - all part of 'ending Free Movement' and the professional services folk - including musicians, actors, fashion models etc -are all victim of

@BorisJohnson What's the government going to do about all this? Good question, which brings us to todays @CommonsDCMS hearing in which the Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage @cj_dinenage frankly pin-balled around the issues /5
BREXIT
Axelisys (at Home)
Axelisys (at Home)
@Axelisys
👨🏾‍💻 OK. So the @Independent is such a rare thing these days. There are a couple of things to highlight in this article.

Firstly, Rules of Origin generally are a WTO concept not EU concept. The Single Market recognised the UK as equivalent #Thread

Most of the provision of the UK-EU Partnership Agreement undoes EU rules to 'regress' to WTO rules, before then applying the Free Trade Agreement elements between the two parties. That's the nature of going from Single Market & Customs Union, to a [mere] free trade agreement /2

The affected industry bodies seem to think they can just pick up the trade deal & start negotiations from scratch again. No, that's not how it works. The EU are now not part of the regulatory chain the UK can access, since the UK gave up on the shared competency of membership /3

Unlike UK Parliamentary law, which works on the principle of not binding future electorates, this is a principle that can only apply in the UK. The EU (or anyone else we ever end a deal with) not only doesn't recognise it, but can't! /4

Previously, in the UK, you could just write to your MP, who could raise questions with the shared l competency, through the European Council. You could also write to your MEP, who could raise questions to the European Parliament. Now, neither of these apply /5
BREXIT

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KANIPAKAM VINAYAKA, CHITOOR (AP)
#bharatmandir

Kani means wetland and Pakam means flow of water into wetland.
Kanipakam Vinayaka is swayambhu (self-manifested). The murti is in a well which is always full of water.


Once, there were three brothers. Each one had a handicap- Dumb, Deaf and Blind. They had a small piece of land for livelihood. For their field, they drew water from a well. One day, they found that the well had dried up so one of them started digging in the well.


His tool hit something and blood oozed out. They found a swayambhu murti of Ganesha here.
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The murti is still growing in size. At present, we see the knees and the abdomen only. The Kavacham (Armour) offered to Vinayaka 50 years ago doesn’t fit today.
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THREAD: 12 Things Everyone Should Know About IQ

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