I’m normally not keen about having a post consist largely of a tweetstorm, but this Brexit offering by Jon Worth is a showstopper…including his clever use of icons.

As you’ll see, Worth looks at all the ways the EU and UK might buy themselves more time to get something done. He finds that pretty much all the paths are dead ends and/or require tons of trust, when trust has been in scarce supply.

Note that he also assumes that the EU wants a deal and would be willing to participate in fudge-making. I’m not certain this follows. The EU has decided, for reasons I cannot fathom, to indulge the UK and negotiate down to the very last minute. Taking this approach is a tremendous disservice to its businesses, since they don’t know if they will be contending with a crash-out or a thin deal, presumably no tariffs and no quotas. The latter would still create a tremendous amount of friction at borders. I am surprised that multinationals and large domestic players haven’t made a huge stink about the neverending negotiations adding unnecessarily to Brexit damage. Given that the EU seems to be allowing the UK all the time it could possibly use to continue to dither, contrary to the EU’s own interests, one would also think they’d make this a talking point.

So the other question is where the EU wants things to go. Their pointed permissiveness may be a way to let the UK hoist itself on its own petard. I am sure that Barnier and his team would very much like to get any deal done; it’s frustrating to invest so much effort in a project and have it go splat. But his principals may have concluded that if the UK still doesn’t appreciate how bad not having a deal would be, then let them drive off the cliff and find out how hard the landing will be. The EU will have vastly more negotiating leverage once the UK has left and EU businesses have made adaptations to work around the abrupt change.

Put it another way: since the two sides have been thrashing around for months, why should we expect negotiations over a fudge to go better?

OK, it can be avoided no more.

This is perhaps the most complex 🧵 on #Brexit I’ve ever attempted. But this issue really matters.

Business, possibly even lives, depend on getting this stuff right.

It is about the complexity of Brexit delay, and what to do about it.

1/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

The problem: we do not have 1️⃣ yet.

And with just over 16 days to go – including 🌲 – we do not have time for 2️⃣ and 3️⃣ and hence no 4️⃣.

We *might* have time for 2️⃣ – and that could prove to be significant (see tweet 7 below), but definitely not 3️⃣ on 🇪🇺 side.

3/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

The most obvious stumbling block is…

🥁🥁🥁

… the European Parliament!

Parliamentary sovereignty, eh? A topic for another time.

Anyway, the EP has said it will not vote on a Brexit Deal this year.https://t.co/m2GvroyskE

5/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

If there *is* a legal text available to ratify, 🇪🇺 Member States can approve by written procedure (i.e. swift), & 🇬🇧 Lords and Commons can pass primary legislation in a day if they need to.

But the EP says it won’t be bounced into doing that. It takes scrutiny seriously.

7/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

But of course the European Parliament refuses that – as it would just have to rubber stamp a Deal under duress and after the fact.

The EP might, after some howling, do it, but its MEPs are not happy.https://t.co/Z0eJ6OtwWr

9/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

But if the EP can decide after the fact, and time is then not so important, why shouldn’t everyone *else* have their say then too?

Count yourself lucky, 🇬🇧, that Wallonia has no coastline!https://t.co/sMKJqK8tOM

Basically: PROVISIONAL APPLICATION is a headache.

11/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

I presume the non-controversial bits of the text have been translated already, but from agreement to ratifiable text… needs some time.

If there is no agreement by end of this week, perhaps start of next week at the *very latest*, forget this route as well.

13/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

This one would be a practical nightmare – especially if it were not known how long that period would last. And businesses would have to make all their tariff calculations *anyway*.

15/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

Also RETROACTIVE APPLICATION essentially means a period of No Deal, although if it were known that a Deal were forthcoming that might limit the likely panic.

But…

🥁🥁🥁

… trade nerds to the rescue!

17/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

And you would probably not need an agreed legal text for that – both sides agreeing they would be OK with this would probably be OK.https://t.co/V12xdXbnH8

But both sides would still have to want to do it…

19/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

Another solution would be a sort of STANDSTILL ARRANGEMENT – i.e. a couple of paragraphs Treaty (that, yes, would have to be provisionally applied – FTW!) that would essentially buy all the institutions some more time.

Detail scarce on this so farhttps://t.co/H4N4eNTKLs

21/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

SECOND, any of these options is fraught with complexity and difficulty, and some combination of the 5 of them (PROVISIONAL APPLICATION, RETROACTIVE APPLICATION, GATT Article XXIV 5(c), CONTINGENCY MEASURES and STANDSTILL ARRANGEMENT) could be needed.

23/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020

… and all of this is because the man in 10 Downing Street is too scared to take a decision.

Thanks, Johnson.

25/25

— Jon Worth (@jonworth) December 15, 2020