Here we go. The final Brexit debate begins. The final splash of petrol on the dumpster fire before the match is lit at 11pm tomorrow night.
Boris Johnson deliberately mocks the SNP by calling them the Scottish Nationalist Party, despite being admonished by the Speaker. There speaks a man who doesn't give an itty bitty toss.
Boris Johnson: "Just as we've avoided trade barriers"
What? Ah, it's because he carefully defined them as "tariffs and quotas" just before lying about them.
There will be massive, massive non-tariff barries.
He's dodging the question about fishing and Northern Ireland, wriggling like one of those eels the EU won't be buying any more.
Boris Johnson is bigging up the speed with which the UK managed to reach a trade deal.
But a trade deal that favours the interests of your counterpart while securing almost none of your own *should* be a quick process. Biting your hand off takes no time at all!
Boris Johnson: "The people of Scotland took a once in a generation sovereign decision to remain in the UK."
He's figured out the best way to eat up time is to keep needling the SNP.
This whole thing is vomit-inducing, like listening to a toddler telling his parents how he can run away forever.
Boris Johnson dismissed a completely valid question from Labour about services by mocking the MP, asking whether he will be joining Starmer in supporting the deal.
The Tories will hang Starmer's abject capitulation around Labour's collective necks forever.
Just like the last 4.5 years of the Brexit horror show, about half of Boris Johnson's comments have been about fishing.
Boris Johnson: "levelling up across the UK" - one "up" too many.
Now Boris Johnson is mocking the SNP again.
BJ: "In 5 and a half years time, we will be able to fish every single fish in our waters, if we so wish"
That sounds vastly too simplistic.
Summary of Boris Johnson's speech: lie, lie, exaggeration, SNP smell, lie, lie, deflection, SNP really stink, lie.
Another Labour question torpedoed by going back to the fact they're voting for the deal.
Boris Johnson: "Leave old, tired, super-masticated arguments behind"
Boris Johnson: "Now with this bill, we are going to become a friendly neighbour"
Thank the heavens, he's finished.
Starmer next.
"Do we implement the treaty with the EU, or do we not? If we don't, the outcome is clear: we leave the transition period without protection"
He is doubling down on BJ's message that a vote against the deal is a vote for no-deal.
KS "I want the UK to be an outward-looking, optimistic country".
So let's implement an insular, pessimistic deal.
KS is reminded of Labour's 6 tests.
He stammers in avoiding the question completely, stating that voting against is a vote for no-deal.
KS: "Those voting 'no' today want 'yes'. They are counting on others to rescue them."
This is an appalling performance by him. The clinical KS of most PMQs is hiding in a broom cupboard somewhere.
This is now the fifth time that KS has deflected people intervening on him by saying a vote against the deal is a vote for no-deal.
"We fought together for months and years against no-deal. And now others in this chamber will vote for no-deal"
Boris Johnson is challenged by KS to take back his comment about there being "no non-tariff barriers".
BJ stands up and says "there will be no tariffs and quotas". Then he mocks KS and sits back down, chortling.
KS is trying again on the "no non-tariff barriers". None of this is cutting through. He just looks too haunted, too rattled.
Boris Johnson by contrast looks like someone already sitting by the pool sipping pina coladas.
KS talks about the security of the UK, pointing out the UK loses access to multiple real-time EU databases, including one accessed 600,000,000 times by UK police in 2019.
KS: "The PM is pretending he has sovereignty AND zero tariffs and quotas. He doesn't. As soon as he exercises that sovereignty, the tariffs go on."
This was always going to be a hideous debate. But it's underwhelming even my zero expectations.
KS: "We now have an opportunity to forge a new future. One outside the EU. But working closely with our great partners, friends and allies. We will always be European."
Theresa May stands up to speak, and Sky News cuts away. BBC News already gave up. Coverage continues on BBC Parliament and online.
(Yes, it's a busy news day. But this is THE last Brexit debate ever.)
Ian Blackford now.
This will be 🔥
Good on him to bring up EU citizens here first. "Scotland is your home. You're welcome."
IB: "Scotland was European before it was British." Reminds the HOC of hundreds of years of interaction and integration with Europe.
IB: "Brexit means broken promises. It means an isolated Britain in the middle of a global pandemic."
IB: "The decision for Scotland is simple: which union do we wish to be a part of in the future."
"Now that the deal is in front of us, Brexit fictions are replaced by Brexit facts."
It's genuinely sad that only the SNP are standing up to say all the things that have to be said about the Brexit deal. KS tried in a half-hearted waffly way, but he was so skittish it took any edge off his words.
IB: "This deal means more delays, paperwork and checks"
Yes. £7.5 billion a year worth, according to HMRC's estimate.
IB: "We know this deal means a drop in access to fish stocks [for Scotland]"
Yep. All fishermen have been shafted, but Scottish fishermen most of all.
IB: "Labour's Brexit tests have disappeared as quickly as Tory promises."
Can't watch the Brexit debate any more. Just too soul-sapping. Good luck to anyone still enduring it.
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This is exactly what should have been presented years ago so that firms could prepare.
Or, arguably, before the Brexit referendum. Just the 70 pages of case studies released TODAY could have tipped the result the other way. Not everyone is blinded by sovrinty & hating forrins.
Going back to the examples...
The person in France buying (say) UK mechanical goods will take one look at the procedures involved, and Google an alternative supplier inside the EU instead.
And this one on selling fish to France. Hurts my eyes, and my brain.
Poor fishermen. And I mean that sincerely. They have been used as pawns by the high and mighty throughout the Brexit process. And now they have to face this.
Full Brexit in just over 7 hours, and the UK Government website doesn't seem to know what rules will apply to moving goods around the EU for temporary purposes, such as to take stuff to trade shows... gov.uk/taking-goods-o…
Here's where it gets "fun" if you follow a few breadcrumbs.
I will give Liz Truss a little credit. Not that many EU trade deals remain unrolled-over. Her team did an ok job of the old CTRL-C CTRL-V.
(But *zero* out of ten for the naked propaganda following each act of copying.)
Mexico & Canada are delayed a bit. Then just titchy stuff.
What we are likely to discover going forward is that a single substantial trade deal is harder to accomplish than copying across 60+ existing ones. In the latter case, the detail has already been thrashed out over months and years. But new trade deals mean starting from scratch.
Up until now, it's basically been an exercise in penmanship: how neatly can Liz copy out other people's homework.
But going forward, she'll have to complete the work on her own. And that's a much tougher proposition.
Here's how the UK's situation will change after the transition period ends, compared to our former EU membership...
(Come back to this thread. It will keep growing!)
- UK can negotiate its own trade deals
- No more automatic participation in new trade deals reached by the EU
- UK gets to keep fish equivalent to 25% of the catch EU boats previously caught in UK waters, staggered over 5.5 years
- Costly export health certificates for fishery products
- Inbound and outbound customs and regulatory checks (UK side will defer some of these temporarily)
- Stringent rules of origin and local content requirements
- Loss of freedom of movement for UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK (Ireland excepted)
- No Erasmus programme
- No equivalence decision for financial services
Brexit Pledge: "I pledge that I shall neither forgive nor forget the politicians who inflicted Brexit on us, nor the ones that stood by as the UK was harmed. Their lack of opposition and abdication of responsibility makes them equally culpable." (please RT)
(NOTE: the above is a repost of something I posted in March 2019. It is equally if not more valid today. This is about the last 4.5 years, not the last 12 hours...)