So what’s going on with “third party listing” - the unilateral decision of EU to accredit the UK as an exporter of food and food products to EU?

Barnier mentioned explicitly not even being able to do assessment in his statement because of “uncertainties about GB SPS regime”...

[note specific ref to GB not UK SPS regime]...
Anyway UK food industry HAD thought 3rd party listed status wasnt really part of trade negotiation..last April & October, late in day, EU committee called SCOPAFF agreed UK listed status, permitting exports. https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/safety/docs/reg-com_cic_20191011_agenda.pdf

granted on last 2 occasions on basis UK to remain broadly aligned on SPS measures - but now uncertain, clearly now in UK-EU trade negotiation mix (possibly interaction here with US Trade deal, where USTR asked out loud how detached UK will be from ‘protectionist’ EU standards)...

So CDL Gove this morning said the PMs comments on the EU having power to embargo GB exports to NI, referred to a situation where the EU did not give GB listed status, (NI implicitly would keep it) and that block then would be enforced in Irish Sea border..

Only possible way GB-NI food embargo would happen is if UK not listed by EU, & then UK officials (operating under NI Protocol EU rules) from Defra/ borders physically enacted it - which would clearly never actually happen... but could be a breach

Anyway if the UK failed to get a listing from EU for food exports, I suspect that for example protesting Welsh hill farmers excluded from exporting lamb and many other examples would be a much bigger issue...

Reading between lines of PM’s & Barnier’s words - possible explanation for all this, is that the EU in negotiations have tried to use 3rd party listing, data and financial services equivalence as leverage, and this week’s legislation is an effort to leverage NI issue in return

Perhaps the PM is hoping for a repeat of his view of what happened in October, activating Dublin to push for some sort of compromise for a deal it needs most in EU27.. danger is that misreads what happened then, and this week’s actions lower room for compromise ...

Also in terms of the 4D Chess of all this - last Autumn US VP Pence flew to Dublin just before coming to London, to encourage Varadkar to compromise on withdrawal deal. US not likely to be so engaged right now, and indeed we’ve all heard Pelosi/ Neal & Biden advisers this week

Last point - seen some notion the particular new worry is how intra-UK checks that are part of the deal PM signed up to, when enacted, will damage the Union, specifically in terms of Scottish independence debate... ie disarm unionists making key “Berwick checks” argument...