Anton Spisak @AntonSpisak Twitter profile

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Not one of the Tory candidates talked about jobs, or housing, or stalled wages, or ultra-low productivity, or low trade openness after Brexit, or how to fix a stalemate over the Northern Ireland Protocol and avoid a trade war with the EU. Not a single one.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Lord Frost's resignation exemplifies a pattern among all the loud sovereignty purists: upon realising that there are difficult trade-offs inherent in their own choices, they pack their bags and leave, blaming others for the self-inflicted mess.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Wait until Moscow or Beijing invokes "the doctrine of necessity" to override its international obligations. The damage that UK ministers are doing with this bill - simply because they cannot accept their mistake and negotiate in good faith - goes far beyond Northern Ireland.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

I feel strongly that every comment on the NI Protocol must start from a simple statement of fact: When Johnson agreed to the revised Protocol in October 2019, he knew exactly what the consequences were, but he did so out of pure self-interest (to win the 2019 election).

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

A minister of HM Government showing a middle finger to the public. I can’t imagine this happening before 2019 and the minister not being sacked within minutes. Shows how much the standards in public life have fallen in the last 3 years.

Bridget Phillipson

@bphillipsonMP

2 years

Ministers aren’t expected to be perfect. But is it really too much to ask that they don’t treat the public like this?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

I was in the civil service when the pandemic began. I can tell you there was no “complacency” from civil servants. Nobody was spending their mornings on Pelotons, midday yoga, or anything else you read in the Telegraph. Rather, there were crisis teams, burnouts, and anxiety.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

As it happens, I have become a UK national today. In my oath I was asked to pledge that, as a citizen of this country, I will show tolerance and respect for others. It is shameful that the Home Secretary shows so little respect for these British values.

Dr Rachel Clarke

@doctor_oxford

2 years

. @ukhomeoffice has denied entry to a 69 yr old Ukrainian widow, fleeing the fighting in Kharkiv, to join her daughter in the UK. They suggested she apply for a visitor visa or remain in France, where she has no relatives & doesn’t speak French. Sickening.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

What the UK is proposing to do is to rewrite a part of the binding international treaty, into which the UK voluntary entered, through primary legislation in domestic law. This is an act of a rogue state, not something "consistent with international law", as Truss argues.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

When I visited Brussels recently, there was real nervousness about Truss and her prime-ministerial prospects. She is seen as unreliable and untrustworthy not only by EU institutions, but also key member states. This sense of nervousness is likely to grow after today.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

This is a highly misleading article by BBC. There’s no UK-India trade deal (and there won’t be one for a good while). What is being announced are various business export deals which may or may not add up to £1bn.

£1bn UK-India trade deals will create 6,000 UK jobs, says PM

The deals will create new jobs in the health and tech sectors, Boris Johnson says.

www.bbc.com

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

In this entire Protocol saga, one cannot help but feel for Theresa May. Her govt collapsed over the refusal of her party to agree to concessions that would have prevented east-west checks; kept NI in the UK's internal market; and avoided a substantive hit to the UK economy.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Five years after the Brexit referendum that has sapped all the energy of the British state away from tackling genuine challenges facing the UK, the most surprising thing for me is what a small political price the governing party has paid for the biggest blunder in modern history.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

1 year

I was part of the team renegotiating the Protocol in the autumn of 2019. I don't know anyone who thought the consequences were "unforeseen". In fact, they were all laid out to MPs as part of the Impact Assessment on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (p44-60):

David Bond

@DJBond6873

1 year

NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris tells @KayBurley that the authors of the NI Protocol didn't understand the ramifications. "Politicians are legislators. Legislators are very good at creating law but when the rubber hits the road sometimes you get unforeseen consequences."

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Having now taken a few days to digest the detail of the UK-EU agreement, here's a couple of observations from me on the deal, what it means, how we got here, & where it might take future UK-EU relations. (A long thread)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

9 months

The most interesting thing about this latest episode is that this is no longer the question of government readiness but rather cost to consumers. It the most explicit acknowledgement by the UK government that Brexit trade barriers are inflationary.

Post-Brexit UK border food checks delayed again on inflation fears

Planned regime already put back several times and now government and business balk at impact of red tape on prices

www.ft.com

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

My biggest takeaway from crossing borders of 4 European countries in the last few weeks: EU countries have well-coordinated systems, including for transit, which treat vaccinated people differently from the unvaccinated ones, while the UK has an utterly dysfunctional one.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Is this the most important chart of our time?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Having had two jabs (one in the UK and one in the EU), I will have to self-isolate for 10 days upon arrival to the UK, a country with 630 new cases per a million, when coming back from Slovakia, a country with 3.69 new cases per million. UK Covid policy defies basic logic.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

As it happens, 15 May 2020, the same day that this party took place, was my last day in the civil service. I resigned because it was hard for me, in good conscience, to support the work of the government. It still feels like the right decision.

Jim Pickard 🐋

@PickardJE

2 years

ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Having binge-watched the excellent BBC Blair-Brown documentary last night, I've been most struck by the sheer contrast between their generation of politicians, who had the dedication, intellect and ability, and the present one, for whom all those qualities are a rare exception.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

11 months

Today I've made an error of opening my student loan balance. Interest rate: 6.9% on a government loan, or accruing £284 to my balance in *interest alone* every month. Every single month. The UK's student finance system is broken.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

7 months

Slovakia, a small central European country and EU member, is facing a parliamentary election this week. It might be one of the most consequential elections in the country’s 30-year history, with ramifications for the EU, Ukraine and the West. A thread:

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

When I was 15, my first contact with the UK was through @BritishCouncil and their excellent Active Citizens programme. It turned me into an anglophile. Any UK government that can find £200m for a royal yacht, but not £10m for British Council has its priorities completely wrong.

Stephen Kinnock

@SKinnock

3 years

UK govt has refused to find £10m for @BritishCouncil - forcing closure of 20 vital overseas offices. A hammer blow for our soft power. Since 1934 BC has won friends & influenced people worldwide, yet @DominicRaab @RishiSunak seem determined to lose friends & alienate ppl. 1/3

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Home Office is asking me for the evidence of UK residence specifically for the time when I worked for the Civil Service. Peak public sector efficiency.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

It is beyond belief that, at the very moment when the rules-based international order is under the greatest pressure since 1989, the UK government chooses to override an international treaty in domestic law.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Since David Frost and Boris Johnson both claim that they didn’t know what the Protocol would imply, and how tricky it would be to make it work, why not publish the advice from officials and legal officers when the Withdrawal Agreement (incl Northern Ireland Protocol) was agreed?

George Parker

@GeorgeWParker

3 years

“The boundary for trade purposes is proving more of a deterrent to trade and more of a generation of trade diversion than many people expected.” David Frost, Spectator. "There will be no border down the Irish Sea," Boris Johnson 2020

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

I’m going to offer a full analysis of the UK-EU deal later, but after a quick read, I’m astonished how thin the deal is. With no equivalence for SPS, no recognition of conformity assessment for regulated goods, no regulatory provisions for financial services, this falls (1/2)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

A new national lockdown, yet anyone arriving into the UK can enter without (a) a proof of a negative Covid test at the border, or (b) a requirement to be tested within days of arrival. Most countries have such requirements to stay atop of transmission from abroad, not the UK.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Over the course of Raab’s term as the Brexit secretary, his entire private office resigned. And there was a lot of fury when the submissions exceeded Raab’s limit of 2 pages. Go figure the rest.

Henry Mance

@henrymance

3 years

The Economist on Dominic Raab

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

4 months

An idiotic policy. Many other countries would do anything for their universities to be as globally competitive as the UK’s. But the UK government has decided to undermine one of its most successful exports just like that.

Rishi Sunak

@RishiSunak

4 months

From today, the majority of foreign university students cannot bring family members to the UK. In 2024, we’re already delivering for the British people.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

1 year

@steve_hanke Please take down this false video. I’m in Slovakia right now and there’re no such protests. You’re sharing a video of the anti-vaccine protests from October 2020 and feeding the pro-Kremlin propaganda.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

10 months

En route back to London from Brussels after a couple of days of good meetings and reflecting on how rapidly and profoundly the EU is changing from the bloc that the UK was once part of. Heavily underappreciated within the UK.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

I mean, of course, Britain could "survive" a trade war with the EU. But the question that the British electorate will have to ask at some point is whether all Britain aspires to do is "surviving".

Britain can easily bear a trade war with Europe – and could end up stronger

The UK can survive a trade conflict with the rest of Europe, but businesses need to start war-gaming that right now

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Little evidence Jacob Rees-Mogg tells the truth. It would be one thing for a government minister to argue that the 15-percent trade reduction with the EU is worth some bigger prize, whatever it may be. But it’s something else entirely to lie.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

The thing is, if the govt's problem with the Protocol was primarily about ensuring frictionless movement of goods from GB to NI, they would be trying to address that problem. But they aren't.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Johnson says at the PMQs that the Brexit trade deal “enables us to deal with such threats as the European super league ... and to deliver the freeports”. Neither has anything to do with the EU. But if anyone was ever in doubt about the sovereignty dividend, here you have it

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

7 months

This is a bad day for Slovakia, for Europe, and for the West.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Some noises today that the EU might refer the UK to the WTO, in the very first formal trade dispute after Brexit, for an alleged breach of local content requirements in the UK's offshore wind turbines. An interesting one to watch.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

The whole of Europe is watching what’s happening in the UK and asking why open up an entire country and then toughen up travel restrictions for countries with exponentially lower volumes of cases. The whole of Europe thinks the UK has completely lost the plot.

Sam Coates Sky

@SamCoatesSky

3 years

So there's a live discussion in gvt about whether France should go on the red list - requiring £££ hotel quarantine from those who come back. As per @breeallegretti and @HarryYorke1 Some health figures in favour, but it's a massive call requiring ministerial agreement 1/

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

7 months

Shocker exit poll in Slovakia: Progressive Slovakia expected to come first in the election, overtaking Robert Fico’s Smer! Fico’s prospective ally, the nationalist SNS, predicted not to enter parliament, at 4.4%

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

A lot of discussion about Article 16 of NI Protocol, especially after Johnson said that he would consider invoking it to prevent a border down the Irish Sea. A thread to clarify what Article 16 really is, & why it doesn't offer a solution to the Prime Minister's problem: /1

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

What I’ve found most striking about the Tories in the last week or two is that, once you strip away the ‘levelling up’ slogan, you find the complete lack of coherence on their economic story, even on the most basic stuff. What’s happened to the Tories’ economic thinking?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

This is a seriously misjudged move by Truss. By setting out a 48-hour deadline, the fishing dispute will escalate further mid-week, threatening to overshadow the first week of COP26. What sort of clumsy diplomacy is this?

France fishing dispute: Foreign Secretary Liz Truss sets 48-hour deadline for Brexit row to be...

Speaking to Sky News at the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss hits out at the French for behaving "unfairly" and accused them of operating outside the terms of the...

news.sky.com

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

It is stomach-churning to hear the same people who once talked about getting an “an excellent deal” – despite knowing what the deal meant and not caring – now saying that its their obligation to “protect” the GFA and its institutions with the new Protocol legislation.

Conor Burns

@ConorBurnsUK

2 years

We have a duty to protect the Good Friday Agreement and restore power sharing in Northern Ireland. As PM’s Special Representative to the US on the NI Protocol I’m explaining to our US friends we want an agreement with the EU yet will act to protect NI’s stability if we have to.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

7 months

Starmer is here talking about the fact that his government wouldn’t diverge from EU minimum standards on the environment and labour standards. In both areas, Labour has made clear for a while now that it would improve the current regulatory baseline. This policy has a widespread…

Sam Coates Sky

@SamCoatesSky

7 months

EXC “We don’t want to diverge” - Keir Starmer previously unseen footage from Montreal on Saturday on EU rules Likely to cause a row

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

4 years

It's true, as @JGForsyth says, that No10 prefers no-deal to a deal that would curb UK ability to subsidise domestic business. But this view is based on a false view of the reality. No-deal would, in fact, be a double surrender on state aid (THREAD)

Johnson sees no-deal as better than surrender

The chances of a Brexit deal have receded significantly over the summer. Inside No 10, they now think there is only a 30 to 40 per cent chance that there will be an agreement. The sticking point...

www.thetimes.co.uk

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Amid all the announcements today, it's easy to overlook that the OBR has updated its scenario on a no-deal Brexit. It exposes an undeniably hard reality for the Govt that claims that the UK would "prosper mightily" under no-deal next year. (Short thread)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

The new reality begins. Nearly 6bn of euro-denominated share trading shifted away from the City to new EU hubs on the first trading day of 2021.

EU share trading flees London on first day after full Brexit

Nearly €6bn of dealing rerouted to newly created European hubs and primary exchanges

www.ft.com

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Lots of self-congratulation about the UK's response to Russia on the Conservatives' benches during PMQs. But not one "sorry" for taking donations from Russia's oligarchs and helping make the City of London to be the hub for dirty Russian cash over the last decade.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

1 year

I’m glad this clip exists for the historical record because it shows Johnson’s extraordinary ignorance of the very deal he negotiated. “There will be no non-tariff barriers [after Brexit]. Instead, there will be a giant free-trade zone.”

Irish Agreement

@irishagreement

1 year

@Jacobbe79601492 @HeleneBismarck How can @pmdfoster be claiming the Trade & Cooperation Agreement created non tariff barriers when Boris said there would be none ?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

A weird thing to say after voluntarily signing up to the EU’s first proposal from March 2018 (which TM described as something that “no British Prime Minister could ever sign up to”), selling it as an “oven-ready deal” to win GE 2019, and then hoping to wriggle your way out of it.

Mirror Politics

@MirrorPolitics

3 years

Boris Johnson's Brexit chief blames Northern Ireland chaos on his predecessors under Theresa May

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

When exactly did the UK turn into a failed state?

Anthony Costello

@globalhlthtwit

3 years

BREAKING: The UK now cannot do most blood tests. No tubes. GPs are forced to ration. Read this BMA press release from last night. “At a very perilous point”…

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

4 years

A super-forecaster note for No10: you’re willing to sacrifice a trade deal with the EU on the altar of a goal of building a $1tn UK tech firm. Yet, because you’ve breached the WA, the EU will retaliate - but not in the NI Protocol but where it hits you: cross-border data exchange

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

The outcome of the NI Assembly election promises to be a nightmare for those in Westminster wishing to scrap the Protocol. Likely to be a majority support for the Protocol in the Assembly, meaning that it won't be rejected in the critical 2024 consent vote.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Booking the Day 2 Covid test for my arrival into the UK, I’m shocked how many of the govt-approved test providers claim to offer tests for £25-40 on - but when redirected to book the test on their website, it costs £80-100. Govt should take them down.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

1 year

Is there a book club for policy nerds in London? I’m not aware of one, but I’m wondering if there’d be interest to get together once a month to discuss an interesting policy relevant read, perhaps with a Q&A with an author (and a drink), and exchange ideas. Any takers?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

In an alternative universe, the Prime Minister Theresa May got the backstop through Parliament, took the UK out of the EU with the country staying in the single market for goods, recovered her reputation with solid management of the pandemic, with her approval rating at its peak.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Social mobility is dead in Britain. It is insane, and deeply unjust, to tax young people who beat the odds and acquire good education with a marginal tax rate over 42%.

Ava-Santina

@AvaSantina

2 years

Student loan repayment rise confirmed National insurance rise confirmed Energy bill spike confirmed Cost of living rising what a great time to live and work in Britain 🙃

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

To think that the EU would have agreed to a deal in the absence of a solution on the Irish border is equivalent to spending the last five years living in a cave. And, to believe that there could have been no deal and, simultaneously, no Irish border is plainly wrong.

Christopher Meyer

@SirSocks

2 years

In all the fury over Article 16 one thing is forgotten. The UK should never have accepted in the first place the avoidance of a hard border as our problem. It was always the EU’s-to protect the Single Market. We should have said: it’s your problem, you sort it. We don’t want one.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

The whole debate about whether Johnson should or shouldn’t have read the EU deal is absurd. The question isn’t whether he’s read or not; it is whether he understands the content and its implications. The problem is he doesn’t - remember that “there are no non-tariff barriers”?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

4 years

Amid all the noise, let's take a look at what would actually happen if the UK were to legislate contrary to its international commitments in the withdrawal treaty. What would be the consequences? (THREAD)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Spending the weekend in my native Slovakia, I’m struck how many times I’ve heard the pro-Russia apologists here (yes, they exist) evoke John Mearsheimer and his speech on NATO’s eastward expansion as a common-sense view of what’s happening in Ukraine. The damage the man has done.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

What an extraordinary mess. The UK is considering extending mutual recognition on EU exports to the UK, reducing costs for EU exporters. All this while UK exporters into the EU (and from GB to NI) face the highest costs ever. Well done.

Adam Payne

@adampayne26

3 years

Exclusive: The government is currently looking at a menu of options for postponing checks on EU imports planned to be in place by July 1st One is gradually phasing them in from July 1st, while another is delaying them altogether, I'm told

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Some thoughts on the UK's new Command Paper on Northern Ireland, what it means, and where it leaves us. (A thread)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

The real problem is this. It doesn't matter whether the EU's ban is justified on the grounds of "averting serious societal difficulties" (Art 16). The EU appears to have already breached the terms of NI Protocol by *failing to notify* the UK of its intention to impose this ban.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

I fear that the UK's tactical invoking of Article 16, if used to unilaterally implement its command paper, will be the biggest strategic blunder in the history of Brexit yet. (A short thread)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

So, with all respect to the Prime Minister, I struggle to see one thing: what legitimacy does he still have to talk about the Northern Ireland Protocol - let alone to threaten "renegotiate it or remove it" - without appearing like a complete fool?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

The US and UK have now cut off Russian banks from dollar and sterling clearing. But the EU and its regulators haven't yet reciprocated with euro clearing. The lack of coordination among the Western governments on what should be uncontroversial measures is shocking.

Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola

@Frances_Coppola

2 years

US sanctions announced today will shut Russia's two biggest banks out of international dollar clearing. I remind you that all dollar transactions, anywhere in the world, except those in physical cash go through the NY Fed.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Lord Frost has resigned over the inevitable capitulation over the Northern Irish Protocol that will come soon. It’s his own fault; he has set the bar too high in the July Command Paper, pledging to remove all EU law from the Protocol. An impossible ask which has backfired on him.

Beth Rigby

@BethRigby

2 years

Via Mail on Sunday. Senior govt source said Lord Frost's departure had been prompted by intro of 'Plan B' Covid measures. That final straw after months of growing discontent over tax rises and the staggering cost of 'net zero' environmental policies.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

4 years

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Art 27: “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.” A state cannot escape its international commitments by referring to its domestic legal situation.

Joe Mayes

@Joe_Mayes

4 years

The Attorney General is defending the government's stance on breaking international law in the Commons. `It’s entirely proper, it’s entirely constitutional and lawful in domestic law to enact legislation that may operate in breach of international law or treaty obligations' 1/

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

4 years

A note to UK journos: next time a government minister confidently name-drops "Australia-style deal", remind them of a EU-AUS Framework Agreement. It provides cooperation on foreign policy. Ironically, this is exactly the type of agreement the UK said it does not want with the EU.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

The first section - the Govt's take on "how we got here" - is an extraordinary attempt to rewrite history. We are told that we are in the current mess because of (1) Theresa May, (2) Parliament (Benn-Burt Act), & (3) the EU. Everybody but the man who agreed to the deal.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Britain’s political leaders have been ignoring longstanding structural problems facing UK economy for decades. The idea that EU membership was the driver of those problems and that a hard Brexit suddenly enables us to tackle those problems is utterly ridiculous.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

A solid contender for the most stupid idea ever uttered by a government minister.

Vote Politics UK

@votepoliticsuk

2 years

🚨 Treasury minister Chris Philp says no business with under 500 staff will be subject to business regulation

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

To add: This is a direct consequence of the UK’s strategy to drop most offensive asks in favour of hoping to win the argument over LPF. True, the UK did negotiate down EU opening offer on LPF but didn’t win the big argument & ended up with a minimal deal.

The UK Falls Into an Elephant Trap of Its Own Making on Brexit

www.institute.global

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

1. Truss justifies domestic legislation almost entirely on the basis that the Protocol undermines the Good Friday Agreement. However, she doesn't address the fundamental question of why this wasn't a concern for the govt when signed the treaty in 2019 and knew about the risks.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

A couple of thoughts on Liz Truss's statement on the N Ireland Protocol:

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

He didn't read a single word of it, did he?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

Looking at the list of regulations for reform announced by Lord Frost, most have nothing to do with the EU. So many random ideas, it's as if you asked government departments to come up with any ideas, and as quickly as possible. Embarrassing.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

What a misleading article. There is no “deal on financial services” and there isn’t going to be one. There will only be a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding. At best, it will cover things like regulator-to-regulator dialogue on financial stability and data exchange.

Neil Henderson

@hendopolis

3 years

FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY: City plans Brexit deal by March as talks start #TomorrowsPapersToday

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

5 months

The only way that these changes to migration policy make sense is if your intention is simultaneously to a) cut the UK’s already abysmal growth prospects, b) make the UK less attractive to global talent, and c) divide families. Great work, guys.

Pippa Crerar

@PippaCrerar

5 months

James Cleverly tells MPs he'll cut record net migration to UK by 300,000 👇 - min salary for foreign skilled workers up to £38.7k - min income to bring spouse same level - ban on care workers bringing dependents - shortage occupation list scrapped - review of 2yr graduate visa

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

Johnson describing a near-complete rewrite of the Protocol though primary legislation as "a trivial set of adjustments" and "a bureaucratic change" is utterly dishonest. At least own your bloody bill, ffs.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

I, for one, look forward to the spectacle of trying to resolve the NI Protocol during the French presidency of the EU in the first half of next year.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

An extremely striking chart from OECD on productivity growth over the 10 years. The UK is at the very tail end, on par with Italy and only better than Greece. The lost decade.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

He knew too, during the TCA negotiations in 2020, that a thin trade agreement that pulls GB away from the EU and puts a premium on the absolutist view of sovereignty, while NI is de facto a member of the single market for goods, will create enormous problems.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

My letter in the FT today: The UK’s plans to enact legislation that would grant ministers the powers to override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol that they dislike are a spectacular error of judgment and strategy.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

The Brexit deal marks a new beginning of a complex relationship in which Britain and the EU will have to learn to live together differently. This is the new institutional infrastructure set up by the treaty. New Partnership Council, 19 specialised committees, 4 working groups.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 months

Bratislava tonight. Over thirty thousand people gathered in protest in the Slovak capital, and thousands more in smaller towns across the country, to oppose Fico’s government and his efforts to undermine the rule of law. A fourth mass protest since the start of the year.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

In summary: a statement ripe in inconsistencies.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

This is what the Foreign Office calls "corruption" in other countries.

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

3 years

Leaked Government documents reveal special procurement channels for ‘VIPs’ and Cabinet contacts - and opportunities for 35-45% profit margins for insiders. #goodlawproject

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

8 months

Today, 55 years ago, the uninvited Soviet tanks and soldiers invaded Czechoslovakia to crack down on political liberalisation. My grandfather decided it was finally the time to leave the Communist Party, for which he later paid a hefty price. The bastards left 23 years later.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

If she becomes PM, I think it will be virtually impossible to solve the stalemate over the Northern Ireland Protocol. Unlike Sunak, who could appeal to the EU with a fresh start, Truss simply isn't trusted. The result will be a trade war with the EU when the NIP bill becomes law.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

As France and Germany inches closer to endorsing Ukraine’s EU candidate status, it’s worth remembering the pressure Central and Eastern European states – the Baltics, Poland and Slovakia – have been putting on Macron and Scholz. The full credit should go to those countries.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

The third takeaway: If you have a UK passport, I’m sorry to inform you that the queues at the EU airport controls are now much longer for you. And if you have an EU passport and are flying out of the UK, your true Brexit dividend is a short, fast-moving queue.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

If only the Prime Minister read the agreement he signed. If only he didn’t create this entire mess. If only…

Nick Gutteridge

@nickgutteridge

2 years

Boris Johnson tells the Commons that the EU is implementing the NI Protocol 'in an insane and pettifogging way, and we need to sort it out.' He says '200 businesses have stopped supplying NI, foods are being blocked, and Christmas cards are being surcharged'.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

even below the standard of some recent EU FTAs. Yet, it does ask the UK to comply with more extensive obligations on LPF (state aid, non-regression, & rebalancing for future divergence). None of this is surprising, but it’s hard to see this as anything as an unbalanced deal (2/2)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

3 years

It has been more than 4 years since we heard the oft-repeated mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Yet, when UK Parliament votes on the UK-EU agreement later today, it will be the first time that they know what Brexit really means. They will do so without any proper scrutiny or debate.

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

4 years

16. We're now in a bizarre situation when No10 is prepared to take the risk of no-deal - and to accept its enormous consequences economically and politically - in the hope of securing an unattainable goal of full control of the post-Brexit state-aid policy. Astounding. (ends)

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

The real mystery of tonight is, who are all these trade envoy MPs appointed by the government? Do these jobs exist just to keep the government payroll as wide as possible?

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Anton Spisak

@AntonSpisak

2 years

He has consistently chose to put the loud voices of the sovereignty purists in his party before the interests of Northern Irish people (across all communities), Northern Irish business, and the UK's national interest.

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