@StuartBudd1 There’s a lot of it about! And it will continue until the outcome of the Makerfield by-election is known. The behaviour of the English political class bears out the maxim of Tip O’Neill that “all politics is local”.
@MagellanQuest Section 5. "As home secretary for 6 years, I know that you cannot control immigration overall when there is free movement to [!] Britain from Europe".
That was not true then and it is not true now.
https://t.co/2oa14eWdzN
@MagellanQuest Theresa May conflated third country immigration with - reciprocal - FOM either deliberately - or - far more likely - through simple obtuseness. She even insisted that the UK was no longer subscribing to the very principle of it!!!
https://t.co/tmlHMFIo35
@milos_gis Less poetic but just as sad. "It was said that a squirrel could travel from one end of Ireland to the other without ever touching the ground as more than 80% of the land was covered by forests".
https://t.co/VXtRJZBaBK.
@JohnRentoul It was the view, and policy, of Theresa May. Neither she, nor Gove, nor the majority of the voting English electorate, nor the MSM, grasped the difference between non-EU immigration (which all MS retained control of) and FOM. A primer on the latter!
https://t.co/tmlHMFIo35
@243Andrew@BritainUnbound@LordAshcroft Look at the 10y chart. The Swedish crown has fallen by about 15% to 20% relative to the euro. Makes holidays more expensive. As in the case of the £.
@BritainUnbound The UK cannot vote itself back into the EU. It is such delusional thinking that allowed Brexit to happen in the first place. The UK has to become a reliably predictable partner, a point which Keir Starmer has clearly grasped. Others, not so much.
https://t.co/DOI1bZmvVV
I find this article by @LiamHalligan deliberately misleading and unhelpful. I have no interest in reigniting the Brexit debate. The question is not whether the UK economy collapsed after leaving the EU. It didn’t.
The real question is whether Britain is now a more attractive place for European companies to invest, manufacture and export from. Working with a major European defence company, I see the practical impact every day. Brexit did not stop investment in the UK. It increased the cost and complexity of doing business here.
• Customs friction
• Rules of origin requirements
• Regulatory divergence
• Labour mobility constraints
• Supply-chain complexity
These factors all make the UK a less competitive manufacturing base than it was before.
The fundamental question is simple: why would any country voluntarily make trade with its largest and closest market more difficult?
This matters because @JohnHealey_MP rightly wants overseas firms to create UK jobs and build equipment in Britain.
The problem is that Brexit weakens the long-term business case for maintaining those investments once UK contracts have been delivered. If we are serious about growth, exports, defence industrial resilience and attracting inward investment, we have no choice but to focus on reducing trade barriers with our largest market.
That means pursuing much closer economic alignment with Europe, whether through the EEA, the Single Market, or another arrangement that restores frictionless trade. This isn’t about reversing Brexit. It’s about making Britain the most competitive place in Europe to invest and manufacture.
@nicholadrummond@LiamHalligan "The fundamental question is simple: why would any country voluntarily make trade with its largest and closest market more difficult?".
The answer is an unwillingness to accept the very concept of freedom of movement, to quote the Political Declaration that underpinned Brexit.
Only one poll, but still striking how support for rejoining the EU is weakening now that more people are talking about it and the costs and conditions are becoming clearer... 👇