Thread by @pmdfoster

So @MichelBarnier
may have appeared to pull his punches today, but don't be fooled. He stuck firmly to EU guns.

This is a key word "de-dramatise" and you'll hear it a lot more - and it is not good news for Mrs May. Here's why /1

If EU sticks to guns on cherry-picking, then that leaves UK with basic FTA...and that means an Irish sea goods border.

When Barnier says "de-dramatise" he means May and Davis need to give over on their contention that such a border is a threat to UK constitutional integrity /2

So when Barnier uses this word, it's code for "the only compromise we need here is by the UK" on the question of the east-west border that would be thrown up by hiving of Northern Ireland into separate regulatory orbit. Something May has said is "unacceptable". /3

So when he talks about Mrs May's max fac solutions being useful, he means to "de-dramatise" checks on that border, which already exists to some degree because the island of Ireland is a single phytosanitary unit, so animals get checked at Larne etc. Also timber, fertiliser. /4

Barnier is saying EU can help minimise the additional east-west checks by doing them away from the border, at factories and warehouses etc to minimise the impact of the new border controls that would be necessary to protect single market from UK divergence /5

And as you'll recall, there are a lot of checks, even if UK signs up to a customs union with the EU. /6

This is a massive gulf in thinking between EU and UK which is adamant an Irish Sea border for goods risks unraveling the United Kingdom - leave alone what such a move would do to the politics of the wider Union in Scotland. /7

That gulf is worrying. Because all the ideas being discussed at #Chequers (and let's leave aside the loony Customs Partnership stuff) require the UK to win the broader argument on cherry picking - if not for goods in the single market then at least for free movement/services /8

So as they talk at #Chequers Barnier, without shouting about, lays down a marker. The EU is not for turning...of course we'll see about that - in time - if UK offers enough to turn member state heads at the death. ENDS

PS..more of all that here

https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1012642722036043776