Gove's letter to Commission about NI Protocol is deeply insulting - worthy successor to Trump's truth-twisting method of treating international diplomacy with same contempt & dishonesty as domestic politics. But cut through the propaganda & what do we learn? Voila, short thread:

1) Brexit was always going to cause serious problems for NI - as UK parliamentary committees and myriad experts predicted. But Tories and DUP simply lied their way through the entire withdrawal process / negotiations - claiming those problems didn't exist / had easy solutions.

2) When reality finally hit home, ie Tory Hard Brexit threatened hard border & therefore GFA, May sought to minimise the damage. But ERG, DUP et al did everything they could to destroy her solution. Then PM Johnson stabbed DUP in back by imposing alternative: the current Protocol

3) Crystal clear since initial publication of Protocol in Oct 2019? It is inherent in the arrangements Johnson proposed and agreed to, that NI would be legally and economically segregated from rest of UK. That was price to be paid for Tory Hard Brexit & Johnson happily paid it.

4) But having dumped DUP and sacrificed NI to "get Brexit done", UK Gov has since done everything they can a) to deny that any of problems affecting NI are their direct responsibility and b) to undo their own Protocol by trying to undermine its operation / unpick its core rules

5) E.g. repeated public lies about Irish Sea checks. E.g. publishing late and half-baked implementation plans. E.g. refusing EU permission to maintain presence in Belfast. But most of all: explicit and conscious threats to breach legally binding obligations under Protocol.

6) For many, such behaviour provided reasonable evidence that Johnson signed Protocol in bad faith - with no intention of ever properly respecting it, just biding time for excuse to reopen talks & revert to previous fantasies about "alternative arrangements" blah blah blah

7) So - when Commission & UK Gov reached agreement in December 2020 to adjust Protocol / drop Johnson's threats to breach it: some naive souls thought it was genuine; but others argued it was just another Tory tactic to get EU-UK trade/cooperation agreement done & avoid "no deal"

8) Since then: the problems affecting NI have indeed started to materialise. They were not unforeseen. They are not glitches. They were the inevitable and clearly predicted consequences of Johnson's decision to segregate NI from GB in order to deliver Tory's Extremist Brexit

9) Against that background: yes, EU was clumsy & insensitive to propose, albeit quickly retract, idea of "vaccine border". But UK Gov+DUP have clearly seized on this as opportunity they were waiting for: forget all those Brexit lies, obstacles & threats... Everything is EU fault!

10) Under guise of blaming EU for everything Brexit is doing to NI, Gove's letter = further evidence that UK Gov agreed to arrangements it had no serious & honest intention of ever actually respecting? In any case: UK certainly trying to unpick core parts of Protocol once again

11) I'm all for recognising unique situation of NI & need for reasonable flexibility in operation of Protocol. Problem is: that's not what Brexit fanatics really want. They're still living in denial about inevitable damage their Hard Brexit must to do NI & its relations with GB

12) We know UK Gov and DUP will never accept reality and take responsibility; they'll just continue to lie, obstruct and throw blame. Yet if they don't want the Protocol, they need to tell us what the alternative will be, and there are only 4 options to choose from, no others:

13) Those options are:
a UK asks to rejoin Custom Union+Single Market as third country
b UK asks to rejoin EU as Member State
c Northern Ireland rejoins EU through reunification with Republic
d Hard border, threat to GFA, risk of civil conflict
So, Tories / DUP: which one is it?

14) I always said: NI would be among primary victims of Brexit fanatics. Damage is already bad enough & will soon get worse. What Tory + DUP cultists have done so far is shameful. But it is beyond unconscionable that they now deliberately aggravate an already dangerous situation