Yesterday saw the Government reach a compromise with Peers over the devolution aspects of the UK Internal Market Bill. The Lords were standing strong over an amendment on Common Frameworks - so what has been agreed & where do we go now? 🧵

First a quick recap: the bill enshrines 2 Market Access Principles in law 1) Mutual recognition, anything acceptable for sale in one part of the UK is acceptable in another 2) Non-discrimination, no discrimination against goods from another part of the UK
https://t.co/kYCBzZt7IB
The purpose of these is to prevent trade barriers, caused by divergence, between parts of the UK. But the 4 governments were already working on 'common frameworks' to manage divergence *by agreement*. The Scottish & Welsh govs argued these were sufficient https://t.co/mEF2bqSlYp
Lord Hope's amendment aimed to exclude areas were divergence has been deemed acceptable through common frameworks from the Market Access Principles. The gov amendment makes it clear existing powers for UK ministers in the bill can be used to do that.
So this is good news on the devolution front. But it doesn't solve everything - common frameworks only cover policy areas returned from the EU & the devolved governments also have concerns about other parts of the bill. So what are the key questions now?
1) Will this be enough to bring the devolved administrations round?
Both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments have refused consent for the bill under the Sewel Convention. The SP is very unlikely to change it's mind, the Welsh? It's not looking promising 👇
https://t.co/21fAxMIJjQ
2) How will UKIM & common frameworks work together?
Theses are 2 separate programme of work, the first run by BEIS, the second in policy departments with oversight from the Cabinet Office - but they are now linked in law. Serious thought must be given to make them coherent
The new amendment gives the new body established to monitor the internal market - Office for the Internal Market - a role on reporting on the interaction between the two. But it's expertise will be primarily economic, should this be balanced with some policy perspectives?
3) How will disputes be resolved?
Intergovernmental disputes over the application of the UKIM bill are inevitable. Common frameworks have their own dispute resolution procedures, BEIS has structures & we're waiting on the outcome of the IGR review. Any processes must be fair
4) How will the principles be enforced?
What role will regulators or bodies with market enforcement functions play? How will they determine which rules to apply or not apply? What role will the courts play? Who can challenge regulations on this basis.
Despite strong resistance from both the devolved administrations and the House of Lords, passing the UK Internal Market Bill will be the easy part. Making it work in the long term - especially without the buy in from the Scottish and Welsh Governments - will be the real challenge

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🔷 Rev. Raphael Warnock has become the first Democrat to win a Georgia Senate race in 20 years

The politician spoke to voters via MSNBC this morning

https://t.co/T9oJN2fjmo


Warnock is a pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where civil rights leader Martin Luther King once preached.

He will become Georgia's first Black senator


This blue victory gives the Democrats the chance to regain control of the Senate for at least the first two years of the Biden presidency


"With Biden proposing to reverse President Donald Trump's tax cut, increase the minimum wage, and strengthen oversight on various industries, some might argue that his agenda is not particularly market-friendly," says Vasu Menon, investment strategy director at OCBC Bank
If you're curious what Trump's defense will look like, all you have to do is turn on Fox News. My latest at @mmfa

The tl;dr is that for years right-wing media have been excusing Trump's violent rhetoric by going, "Yes, but THE DEMOCRATS..." and then bending themselves into knots to pretend that Dems were calling for violence when they very, very clearly weren't.

And in fact, this predates Trump.

In 2008, Obama was talking about not backing down in the face of an ugly campaign. He said "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

https://t.co/i5YaQJsKop


That quote was from the movie The Untouchables. And there's no way anybody reading that quote in good faith could conclude that he was talking about actual guns and knives. But it became a big talking point on the

In 2018, Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder was speaking to a group of Georgia Democrats about GOP voter suppression. He riffed on Michelle Obama's "When they go low, we go high" line from the 2016 DNC.

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