A short thread on EU State aid rules.
Here’s a partial list of areas where EU State aid rules either automatically exempt - without any request for approval from the UK - or anyway approve State aid:
- regional aid
- R&D
- aid to SMEs
- training aid
- environmental aid (1/8)

And, importantly
- rescue and restructuring aid
where essentially a government can intervene to rescue and then restructure companies that are having short-term difficulties but are potentially viable in the long term. (2/8)

Now I don’t remember Conservative politicians arguing we should be doing more to rescue companies in difficulty (“and we’d be doing it if it weren’t for that pesky EU”). So I don’t believe they’re going to start doing it now. (3/8)

And the U.K. has historically never made as much use of what it *is* already allowed to do under EU rules compared to, say, France. We’ve always spent less supporting industry (unless the industry was banks). (4/8)

But if the Conservatives want to spend more on struggling industries [because everyone believes that that’s what they really want to do, right?], and they can only do that outside of the EU State aid rules, then... (5/8)

They’re talking about rescuing companies that have long term difficulties and not just short term ones. When has a Conservative ever argued for that? (6/8)

So maybe what Johnson is saying now is not an accurate predictor of what he’d say and do in the future. Just maybe. (7/8)

And on State aid issues see also this excellent thread https://twitter.com/GeorgePeretzQC/status/1200405658392289280 by @GeorgePeretzQC (8/8)