David Davis was a terrible #Brexit Secretary. He could hardly be bothered to go to Brussels & rapidly lost respect there. Preposterous for him now to suggest that EU deliberately delayed negotiations. They spent months waiting for him to engage..
Simon Fraser
6,003 posts
Simon Fraser
@SimonFraser00
Founding Partner @FlintGlobal. Chair @ChathamHouse. Former permanent secretary at UK Foreign Office and Business Dpt.
Joined November 2012
- Once this crisis is stabilised we need to break the #Brexit omertà in British politics & openly accept that after six long years this mis-sold & mishandled project has resulted in political & economic chaos. That’s an essential first step towards repairing the damage.
- It now seems more likely that #Brexit will lead to the break up of the United Kingdom than of the European Union.
- Had to go urgently to France last week. PCR test in UK to go there cost me £120. PCR test in France to return home cost me £0.
- This is a shout out for the unsung men and women of the Foreign Office Protocol Department who will have cheerfully been working literally night and day to make today’s state funeral events run like clockwork. @FCDOGovUK
- You may blame the French for understaffing their passport controls at Dover. You cannot blame them for the fact that enhanced formal passport checks are now required at Dover.
- So predictable.... Dysfunctional self-styled weirdos and misfits create a huge mess then walk away leaving boring losers like the civil servants they have serially abused to clear up after them.
- One of many sad things about this destructive, humiliating #Brexit fiasco is that people with knowledge & experience clearly explained the technical & political complexities from the start. But we allowed zealots & opportunists to subvert inconvenient truth.
- As we breathlessly pore over the hour by hour, deal or no deal, do or die, get it done, tactics of a possible phase one endgame, are we losing sight completely of what a lousy long term strategic choice #Brexit is for this country?
- I’d prefer it if our government talked more more about joining up with the world and less about beating the world.
- I recall @DominicRaab with @michaelgove pressing me to agree in the first ever meeting of the @commonseuexit Select Cttee that #Brexit could be successfully done in 6 months. I note that almost 2 years on he is Minister in charge of stockpiling essential goods.
- If we have an “old broken economic model” in the UK of low wages, low skills, low growth and low productivity, presumably the party that has been in government for 29 of the last 42 years bears the main responsibility for that?
- It really doesn’t matter much whether minor criminal offences have been committed. It really does matter that we have a full and uninhibited report on the honesty, integrity, judgement and basic common sense of the people at the heart of running our country.