BREXIT VOTE AS
SHAKESPEARE completed writing his play The Comedy of Errors in 1594, but that title could easily apply to Britain’s current Brexit attempts 425 years later.
The British Parliament will today sit on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands War to vote on a deal to leave the European Union or to seek another extension to the Brexit deadline — three years after a referendum backed it in.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was working around the clock last night, using all his charm and guile to get the votes he needs ahead of the debate that is due to start at 7.30pm Tasmanian time.
Mr Johnson needs to somehow find an extra 35 votes to get his deal across the line or he will face the same fate as former prime minister Theresa May, who failed to pass her deal three times before she lost her job.
Mr Johnson must get the deal done otherwise he will have to ask for an extension under a new law passed last month.
Mr Johnson’s deal was rubber stamped in Brussels on Thursday. It allows Britain to sign new free trade deals, ends the EU court supremacy, prevents a hard border in Ireland, and gives Northern Ireland a say on its future.
The deal will also likely lead to an Australian-style pointsbased immigration system, which would end the working rights in the UK for anyone with a European passport.
There are more than two million EU citizens who will have to apply for the right to stay and work in the UK.
Mr Johnson said yesterday: “I hope very much now that my fellow MPs in Westminster
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do now come together to get Brexit done, to get this excellent deal over the line and to deliver Brexit without any more delay. Now is the moment to get Brexit done.”
The Northern Irelandbased Democratic Unionist Party has flagged it will block the deal, while Labour has also refused to support Mr Johnson’s bid — even though it was a significant improvement on Mrs May’s plan.
The Scottish National Party put forward an amendment to cancel Brexit altogether.
Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage made a stunning backflip, now saying he wanted to delay Brexit rather than sign the deal.
Mr Johnson, when grilled about his numbers yesterday, was resolute that it would “get Brexit done”.
“I am very confident that when my colleagues in Parliament study this agreement that they will want to vote for it on Saturday and in succeeding days,” he said.
“We’ve been at this now, as I say, for 3½ years.
“It hasn’t always been an easy experience for the UK. It’s been long, it’s been painful, it’s been divisive.
“And now is the moment for us as a country to come together. Now is the moment for our parliamentarians to come together and get this thing done.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative Party’s leader of the House of Commons, urged MPs to back the new deal.
“Under the previous deal, we would have been bound into the customs union and the single market until the European Union said we could leave,” he said.
“That’s gone, the backstop has been abolished, and it’s been replaced with a system where the United Kingdom will be its own single customs entity. We will be able to make free trade deals, we will be in charge of our own laws.”
Until this week’s breakthrough, Britain has endured a political limbo that has slowed business investment to a trickle, caused jitters in financial markets and quite simply, annoyed most people who just wanted it solved either way.
Newspapers and 24-hour news channels have been filled with wall-to-wall opinions on what will happen with Brexit, and it appeared the only thing that was certain is uncertainty.
But then on Thursday came the miracle — when the EU agreed on the new deal.
But the European Union turned the screws on Britain yesterday, with President Jean-Claude Juncker saying there would be no further extensions: “We have concluded SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2019 a deal and so there is not an argument for further delay — it has to be done now.”
A spokesman later softened the EU’s position, as it was possible that the UK would seek an extension and sign off on the deal on Saturday.
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn was quick to dismiss the PM’s agreement, criticising it for creating a customs border in the Irish Sea.
“As it stands we cannot support this deal,” Mr Corbin said. But the Labour Leader has his own problems, with his party divided on the issue.
There are members of his own party who want him to come out against Brexit and support a Remain position.
Some might vote for Mr Johnson’s deal, but tie their support to getting a second referendum.
Mr Corbin is hated by his own MPs, with his leadership held up by grassroots support from the Momentum section
2015