BREXIT EXIT
Can we trust our MPs to deliver on the referendum when they can’t even be bothered to stay to the end of the PM’s defence of draft EU deal on which all our futures depend?
THERESA May last night set the stage for a mammoth parliamentary battle over Brexit after telling MPs she had won “the right deal for the UK”.
But, speaking to a near-empty Commons chamber, the Prime Minister had a warning of the uphill struggle she faces to win backing for the deal.
Mrs May endured
another mauling from across the political divide. And despite delivering her Brexit deal update for a marathon 148 minutes, the majority of MPs left before the end, while others fiddled with their mobiles.
Mrs May promised a new relationship with Brussels was “within our grasp” and urged the country to look forward to a “brighter future”.
She flies to Brussels this weekend, where the package will be presented to the 27 other EU leaders for approval on Sunday.
But a string of former Tory Cabinet ministers including Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Iain Duncan Smith tore into the deal, while other Brexiteers accused Mrs May of “surrender”.
News that the deal had been concluded yesterday spread around Westminster when a 26-page text of the completed “political declaration” on the future relationship between the UK and Brussels was leaked yesterday morning.
Shortly afterwards, EU Council president Donald Tusk announced he was sending the document to the other 27 EU leaders.
Mrs May then formally announced her deal outside 10 Downing Street, declaring: “This is the right deal for the UK. It delivers on the vote of the referendum. It brings back control of our borders, our money and our laws.
“And it does so while protecting jobs, protecting our security and protecting the integrity of the United Kingdom.
“The British people want this to be settled. They want a good deal that sets us on course for a brighter future. That deal is within our grasp and I am determined to deliver it.”
The political declaration – designed to form the basis of a new trade deal to be thrashed out after Britain quits the EU next year – promised an “ambitious, broad, deep and flexible partnership” between Britain and the bloc.
Trade will be “underpinned by provisions ensuring a level playing field for open and fair competition” while “respecting the integrity of the Union’s single market and customs union as well as the UK’s internal market”.
It confirms EU free movement to the UK would end.
The deal was signed off by the Cabinet in a hastily arranged conference call yesterday.
A Downing Street source said: “There was strong support for the declaration that has been negotiated. The Cabinet agreed it overall and on specific areas of ministerial responsibility.” Mrs May was backed by Home Secretary Sajid Javid last night, telling Westminster’s The House magazine: “I think that the draft agreement the Prime Minister has reached with our EU friends delivers on the referendum.”
The Prime Minister told MPs: “The British people want Brexit to be settled; they want a good deal that sets us on a course for a brighter future and they want us to come together as a country and to move on to focus on the big issues at home, like our NHS.
“The deal that will enable us to do this is now within our grasp. In these crucial 72 hours ahead, I will do everything possible to deliver it for the British people.” But in another gruelling Commons question-and-answer session, Mrs May was attacked by Tory heavyweights about the so-called “Northern Ireland backstop”.
As top Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg looked on, former foreign secretary Mr Johnson said the plan made “a complete nonsense of Brexit”. And ex-Brexit secretary Dominic Raab warned the deal would “do the opposite” of giving the country back control.
Mr Raab said: “The top reason people voted to leave the EU was to take back control over our laws. Isn’t it the regrettable but inescapable reality that this deal gives even more away?” Mrs May said she won EU concessions that will encourage high-tech customs checks to try to prevent the need for a hard border as an alternative to the “backstop”.
She acknowledged Mr Duncan Smith and ex-Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson had helped with ideas. But both said they could still not back the plan.
Mr Duncan Smith urged Mrs May to “strip out the backstop” while Mr Paterson said the measure threatened “the horror of Northern Ireland being split off”.
Democratic Unionist Party chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said: “If she wants to have the support of my party for the withdrawal agreement, then we need to see an end to the backstop and those alternative arrangements put in place.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned the declaration as “26 pages of waffle” and said: “It represents the worst of all worlds, no say over the rules that will continue to apply and no certainty to the future.”
Former Cabinet minister Priti Patel said: “Everything the UK wanted has been put in an unenforceable, meaningless declaration. And it’s cost us £39billion.”
Eurosceptic Tory Simon Clarke added: “This is a declaration of surrender by the UK Government.”