Schona Jolly QC Profile picture
Feb 28, 2018 7 tweets 3 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Prepare for more high-handed outrage about the EU today as Britain is back on the back foot.

We could have drafted a first Withdrawal Agreement.

We didn’t.

Because how do you get Agreement when the Foreign Sec wants a hard Irish border to accompany his ambition?
And how do you get Agreement when you don’t actually show up to negotiate?

Britain’s full of #FireAndFury but there’s not enough substance behind the endless speeches.
The devil has always been in the inconvenient Brexit detail.

Shiny rose-tinted pronouncements on the fantastic days ahead don’t cut even the English mustard.

#BrexitShambles
The govt may have rammed a half-baked Withdrawal Bill through the Commons, but they won’t get a half-baked Withdrawal Agreement past the EU.

(Btw, Lords aren’t impressed with #EUWithdrawalBill & govt’s lack of detail)
Brexit #FireAndFury is consistently for a domestic audience.

But Brexit isn’t just about what we do (or say) within our borders. It centres crucially about the detail of what happens beyond our borders, on our border & of the Irish border.

20+ months on, time to #GetReal.
Today, confronted with 120 pages of “dense legal prose”, the govt will have to #GetReal.

It could have got there first & done the first draft #WithdrawalAgreement.

It didn’t.

No amount of #FireAndFury or dishonesty will get the govt out of avoiding Brexit’s tough choices.
Finally, whatever the outrage today, remember PM May, aided & abetted by Parliament, prematurely triggered Article 50 without any idea of the detail as to how this would pan out.

Even a red, white & blue Brexit still needs to be settled in the certain black ink of law. /ends

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More from @WomaninHavana

Oct 9, 2018
#IBARome@IntlCrimCourt⁩ Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda says emphatically that pushback by the American govt, & other states, will not deter the ICC from doing its work without fear or favour. #CrimesAgainstHumanity #genocide
ICC can be faced with total non-cooperation, dwindling resources, hostility etc. Forms part of challenge to conducting investigations. We need to anticipate such challenges. US isn’t 1st state to refuse to cooperate with ICC, eg Sudan, but we still collected evidence: Bensouda.
Since I announced investigation into Philippines. I’m sure you’ve heard response of leader, including threats against Prosecutor. But, eg, see Burundi where I opened prelim invest. Burundi immediately withdrew, but we ctd investigation & obtained satisfactory evidence- Bensouda.
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“The govt insisted on holding a referendum for stupid reasons”: Ken Clarke MP holding forth on Brexit at #IBARome

“Hardly any mainstream politician makes the case for immigration; British society has hugely benefited from it.”
Ken Clarke on the anti-immigration fearmongering & #fakenews in Brexit campaign: Just as Farage campaigned with ‘brown people’ on his posters, so they used Turkey, 70m Turks would come to the UK to take jobs etc.

Mainstream politicians ran the Turkey issue - eg Michael Gove.
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Oct 8, 2018
“History did not end as Fukuyama predicted some years ago. History is running now & liberal democracies are under threat” - a powerful opening speech from former Italian PM Romano Prodi, on global democratic malaise, populism & the multiple causes of growing inequality. #IBARome
“Migrants are indispensable to our economic lives, here in Italy too.... (yet) the defence for the loss of identity is the nation. This is why all international organisations are under threat.” Prodi on migration #IBARome
“EU is a symbol of shared progress, of the defence against the right. A visible instrument of a new social justice on a continent” (previously riven by wars) - to applause.
Prodi quotes someone as saying “EU is a union of minorities” - but says this is now challenged. #IBARome
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Oct 7, 2018
Serious cognitive dissonance in @theresa_may⁩’s Op-Ed.

Citizens of nowhere, we remember.

Hard red lines without any respect to a deeply divided result, we see now.

A refusal to apologise for the #HostileEnvironment.

EU citizens rights, we care. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
May claims a “decent, moderate and patriotic programme that is worthy of” Labour support.

So patriotic it deprives us of jobs?

So decent it leaves British citizens in Europe stranded?

So moderate it strips us of our right to study, travel, live, love & work in 27 countries? /2
May boldly asserts “The British people are not bound by ideology”.

Brexit is nothing but ideology.

There are no proven facts. There is a preposterous belief that we can do everything, as all the evidence before he flees to Paris, Berlin, Dublin. /3
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Sep 13, 2018
Govt has now published its 28 No-Deal Guidance documents.

On a skim, common themes are:
- Red tape (more of it);
- Increased price or trouble for most of us.

But don't worry. Blue passports late 2019. And the PM said it's not the end of the world.

gov.uk/government/col…
Some highlights: "The government will invest £92 million from the Brexit readiness fund on an 18-month programme to design a UK Global Navigation Satellite System. This will inform the decision to create an independent system as an alternative to Galileo." /2

#notonthesideofabus
UK-based businesses, academics and researchers will not be eligible to bid for any future work on the EU Global Navigation Satellite System programmes. Onus on them to take steps to avoid penalties. /3
#notonthesideofabus
Read 15 tweets
Sep 3, 2018
I urge everyone to read this stark analysis of a world failed by self-serving leaders, & rife discrimination.

These are the parting words of Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, @UNHumanRights High Commissioner in ⁦@TheEconomisteconomist.com/open-future/20…
Everything he writes resonates with the weight of our daily troubles.

Even as @BorisJohnson issues lazy, reckless & empty rhetoric, Hussein’s words remind us not only that Johnson’s like are morally cowardly, but also dangerous. Frothing, but incapable of advancing us. /2
As a Myanmar court sentences 2 @Reuters journalists to prison terms for exposing horrific crimes, as journalism is weighted down again as a crime, Hussain’s words resonate in a world busy with words, not actions.

“What are we saying to the perpetrators? Or to the victims?”
/3
Read 5 tweets

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