This is less interesting than I’d expected from the hype. In particular the key issue – freedom of movement – is brushed away in a paragraph with “hmm, tricky”. The UK’s entire pitch is “all the trade and none of the immigrants”. twitter.com/cer_grant/stat…
I don’t think the EU could move on that without inflaming countries whose migrants would become second class citizens, but even if it could, it shouldn’t – morally or strategically.
Everything else – courts, money, etc – the U.K. has signalled it is going to be flexible on, because what it wants, what Cameron wanted and what it has always wanted is all the EU minus immigrants.
If, as polls suggest, immigration attitudes are starting to turn positive in the U.K., why put the whole EU in hock to a fading xenophobic constituency.
Originally posted as a thread of 4 tweets on Twitter on 25 July 2018. View the original thread.