Let me take 20 mins to talk to you about how austerity has affected the poorest in this country.
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Let me take 20 mins to talk to you about how austerity has affected the poorest in this country.
Again, it would be funnier if that wasn't basically the only thing he ever talks about. But ok, whatever floats your boat mate.
TWITTER: Sir, the enemy are approaching the city gates and the palace will be over-run within the hour!
CORBYN: Ok, let's take this opportunity to discuss the diplomatic failures that led to this terrible war..
This is an oversimplification I think
The legal position defaults to no deal and exit on 29th march
It is fairly easy for parliment to get over 50% to vote against a specific deal as it's so fractured
What will be more difficult is finding over 50% to agree on something... Which they have to do to prevent no deal (or the government have to cancel or apply to extend article 50 which they have repeatedly said they won't)
Wait, 'toppling the government' is now the priority? I thought it was a second referendum yesterday?
Yeah, sorry. The last decade or so of austerity had absolutely nothing to do with those people telling Cameron and co where they can stick the status quo at the last referendum.
So what's the People's Vote plan for this day after Brexit goes away? Will we finally be able to find 20 minutes to talk about people's lives again, or will we have to make do with 5?
Tbf if Corbyn can't speak about Brexit AND Austerity then he's fecking useless. Why does it have to be one or the other?
It isn't. We're on day 2 of 5 days of debates on Brexit.
Corbyn has voted against every significant EU bill. Including the 1975 referendum, Maastricht, Lisbon and a whole host of other legislation. He voted for a referendum on EU membership in 2011. He hates the EU because it embodies big business, globalisation and has powerful financial institutions. He couldn't give a rats arse how we eventually leave in the end or, what state the country is in when it does, as long as he can get into power tax the rich and nationalise what's left.
His limp suggestions of some airy-fairy new CU and SM access is tosh and just a ruse to further his main objective which is to unseat the government at whatever cost to the country. Corbyn's ideals trump everything. He will oppose every single thing that the government tables often before he's even read or understood it.
If this was May 1940 with our troops on the beaches he would have been talking about child diphtheria or even done a deal with Hitler if it meant Germany leaving us alone so Jezzer could get into power.
In truth the man has no sense of a world outside of England other than aggrieved pseudo states like Palestine. He'd let Scotland go and Northern Ireland - at a stroke.
If the Cornish protested enough hardship he'd give them independence too. They are all irritations which detract from the grand commune of his dreams.
And as for the first care of every leader - to protect it's citizens - then forget that too.
Anyone looking to Jeremy Corbyn to fix this Brexit debacle will be disappointed.
Why is it an either or? If Brexit gets cancelled then the government is going to be untenable. The Tories will be ripping each others throats out at their self perceived complete failure, and an election is then almost inevitable.
Why would it be the People's Vote plan? Once the second referendum is won, Labour can go straight for the Tories throats on all the stuff that lead to Brexit, austerity, economic inequality, poverty, yeah the stuff that led people to wanting Brexit in the first place. They can do it and frame it as 'Yes Brexit isn't happening, so here's how we're going to answer those issues that lead us here instead of just going back to the old neo-liberal economics that left so many people behind'. There's a huge appetite for re-balancing the economic playing field back towards the many not the few. If Jeremy could drop his ideological hobby horses and focus just on those economic issues, then he can do some actual good.
Ffs, why do you always have to come to his defence like he is a hopeless old man being harassed by Internet bullies?
Brexit is about people's lives. It should be the priority right now. No one is suggesting other issues should be ignored. If Jeremy cannot prioritise Brexit right now, when will he? Will he ever?
Ask the people who were spitting feathers at the fact Labour wanted an election over a second referendum that question.
Sorry, but the people who've spent the last three or so years refusing to sit on the shadow cabinet and/or resigning en mass when given jobs in it aren't suddenly going to rally towards a Corbyn led government. These people don't give a toss about ending neo-liberal economics, they've spent the majority of their political careers backing it and voting for it. Before Brexit came along and distracted them all, they were almost all in favour of austerity, economic inequality and poverty - heck, the usual response for who they'd rather be in charge of the party is the woman who decided her mission in life was going to be making work capability assessments 'tougher'. That's how desperate they are to reverse the circumstances that led to Leave winning in the first place.
Oh, you were serious? Go back to the response to any PMQs where Corbyn didn't spend his 20 minutes screaming about Brexit.
I don't need to ask them, I'm one of them. I'm spitting feathers over it, because I don't believe that Corbyn would hold a second referendum under those circumstances, and him trying to implement his economic ideas in the fact of a depressed post-Brexit economy would doom him to failure. And more importantly, doom progressive economic movement to failure in at least the short term.
So what difference exactly is just holding a new election and skipping the referendum going to make? Either Jeremy can command the authority of his party or he can't. Personally I think in the face of a strong electoral push those MPs will come around to his message, just like the neo-liberal Democrats in the US have moved towards progressive stances. Stamping on their desires over Brexit though certainly isn't going to strengthen the likelihood of that happening.
Such a Corbyn-esque answer to the question too!
I am sceptical that such a Corbyn devotee and dyed in the wool traditional hard lefty like you Dobby isn't a secret leaver like Jez.
Come now, you must have a little hankering for that socialist utopia that can't exist in the EU.
Is there a second Democrat party in the US that I've not heard of? Because the one I saw have a mediocre victory in the recent elections were quick to talk about how they were going to work with Trump.
The EU is a steaming pile of shit, sitting on the sidelines whilst people within it suffer at the hands of austerity or refugees drown. Their pile is just slightly smaller than any country being led by a Tory government.
So there are people suggesting other issues should be ignored? Because I said, 'No one is suggesting other issues should be ignored', and you responded with a smiley.
Have you read this thread? Have you seen the BBC's summary of PMQs? The wider British media's employees on Twitter since 12pm today?
Can the mindless Corbyn bashing just go in the Corbyn thread. Moaning about 20mins when there's a 5 day debate and a TV debate is obviously just moany nonsense.
There's around 2000 minutes dedicated in parlaiment to debating brexit. If you think an opportunity has been lost by not using an additional 20 min slot to be about brexit you're mental
There's around 2000 minutes dedicated in parlaiment to debating brexit. If you think an opportunity has been lost by not using an additional 20 min slot to be about brexit you're mental
I don't think there's gonna be a TV debate, guys.
You're right. Corbyn is totally irrelevant to Brexit. I don't think they're really moaning about 20 minutes today, more like the past two and a half years.
I don't think it matters what topics Corbyn brings up at PMQs. May never answers a question.
Yeah god forbid we criticise Corbyn for not discussing the WA on the very weak that Brexit is supposed to be debated in Parliament, in the Brexit thread. Mindless indeed.
Basically this, but today was a culmination. Not only has he been entirely non-committal and hands-off on the issue of Brexit for two and half years, but he also continued in the same vein on the very week that he's supposed to debate Brexit. Getting laughed off is the least he deserves in my opinion.
I used to work with a man who was within a whisker of becoming a Tory parliamentary candidate in Coventry. If he won, he'd have been an MP becsuse that constituency always vote Tory.
He was a fecking imbecile, as thick as two short planks.
I fear these are the kind of people we have in parliament. People who lack basic understanding.
The MP of Dover has no clue how ports work.
He was a fecking imbecile, as thick as two short planks.
I fear these are the kind of people we have in parliament. People who lack basic understanding.
The MP of Dover has no clue how ports work.
Yeah god forbid we criticise Corbyn for not discussing the WA on the very weak that Brexit is supposed to be debated in Parliament, in the Brexit thread. Mindless indeed.
Basically this, but today was a culmination. Not only has he been entirely non-committal and hands-off on the issue of Brexit for two and half years, but he also continued in the same vein on the very week that he's supposed to debate Brexit. Getting laughed off is the least he deserves in my opinion.
What the hell are you in about, is every other message this week from Labour irrelevant? They've been out there constantly setting the message and taking action. There's constant addresses this week about Brexit.
You know there's more to parliament than PMQs?
Here you go full text of his statement yesterday on the very week that brexit is debated im sorry he didn't repeat any of it or the hours of questioning May got yesterday and today
Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a seminal debate in the history of this House and for the future of our country. As a member of this House for 35 years, this debate and the decision we will take next week is one of the most important this House will have taken in all those years.
The deal before us would make our country worse off. Taken together, the Withdrawal Agreement and the Future Partnership represent a huge and damaging failure for Britain. The Prime Minister says this is a good deal and so confident is she of that that she refuses to publish the Government’s legal advice. However, the economic assessments tell us it is a bad deal.
These documents are the product of two years of botched negotiations in which the government spent more time arguing with itself than it did negotiating with the European Union. And it’s not only on Brexit where they have failed. The economy is weak, investment is poor, wage growth is weak, our public services are in crisis and local councils are collapsing.
More people are living in poverty, including half a million more children. Poverty is rising, homelessness is rising and household debt is rising too. Mr Speaker, it is against this backdrop that this Government has produced a botched deal that even breaches the Prime Minister’s own red lines.
Across this House it has united both Conservative remainers and Conservative leavers, with members of every opposition party in an extraordinary coalition against this bad deal.
Mr Speaker, it all could have been so different. Following the 2017 general election the Prime Minister could have attempted to build consensus, recognised the new arithmetic of Parliament and sought a deal that brought people together.
Instead just like her predecessor, who called a referendum without preparing for the eventuality of a Leave vote, the Prime Minister has seen these negotiations only as an exercise in the internal management of the Conservative Party. And she didn’t even manage that.
When the two previous Brexit Secretaries, who theoretically at least led the negotiations, say they cannot support the deal, how can she expect anyone else in this House or in the country to have faith in this deal?
Mr Speaker, no deal is not a real option and the government knows that because it has not seriously prepared for it. Eleven out of the twelve critical infrastructure projects that would need to be in place by the end of March 2019 to manage a no-deal Brexit are at risk of not being completed on time according to the National Audit Office.
Neither this House nor this Government will allow a ‘No deal’ scenario in March 2019 and neither would the EU, as they would be negatively impacted too and are not ready either.
Mr Speaker, the government must publish its full legal advice, as voted for by this House on 13 November. This is undoubtedly one of the most important debates in this House and Hon and Rt Hon members should be in full possession of all the facts, as is the clear will of the House.
In 2007 the Prime Minister argued that this House should have seen the full legal advice in advance of the Iraq war. I agreed with her then. So why doesn’t she still agree with herself now?
Mr Speaker, the Withdrawal Agreement is a leap in the dark. It takes us no closer to understanding what the future of our country post-Brexit would look like and neither does the Future Partnership, which I will come on to.
The Prime Minister states that the transition period ends in December 2020. Article 132 actually says that it can be extended for up to two years, to ‘31 December 2022’. The Business Secretary is already clear that it is likely to be extended until the end of 2022 and under this bad deal we would have to pay whatever the EU demands to extend it for those extra 2 years.
Under this deal, in December 2020 we will be faced with a choice: either pay more and extend the transition period or fall into the backstop. At that point, the UK would be over a barrel. We would have left the EU, have no UK rebate and be forced to pay whatever was demanded.
Alternatively, Article 185 (the Northern Ireland protocol) the backstop, would apply. Not only would that mean Northern Ireland would be subject to significantly different regulations than the rest of the UK but the EU has a right of veto over the UK’s exit from the backstop arrangement.
Whether in a backstop or in an extended transition, the UK would have no say over the rules. We would have already given up our seat at the Council of ministers, our Commissioner, and our MEPs without having negotiated any alternative say in our future.
This Government is not taking back control. It is losing control. No wonder the Science Minister (Hon member for East Surrey) resigned, saying this deal will cost us “our voice, our vote and our veto”.
The last two years give us no confidence that this government can do a deal in under two years. So at some point before December 2020, the focus would then inevitably shift from negotiations on the future relationship to negotiations on an extension to the transition period, including negotiating what further payments we should make to the EU.
So we are over a barrel, either paying whatever is demanded or negotiating away fishing rights, making concessions on Gibraltar or who knows what else? This is a terrible failure of negotiation.
Should the backstop come into force, there is no time limit or end point. It locks Britain into a deal from which it cannot leave without the agreement of the EU. This is, I believe, the first time in UK history that we would have signed up to a Treaty that we could not leave of our own volition.
And in the backstop restrictions on state aid are hard-wired with an arbitration mechanism but no such guarantees exist for workers’ rights. New state aid rules could be brought in whether they were in Britain’s interests or not. The Attorney General made this clear yesterday.
In the backstop the regulatory frameworks dealt with by non-regression clauses “are non-enforceable by EU institutions or by arbitration arrangements” and would give the Government the power to tear up workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer safeguards.
The backstop would apply separate regulatory rules to Northern Ireland. This is despite the fact that the current Prime Minister said this is something “no UK Prime Minister could ever agree to”. Another of her red lines, breached. In fact the list of EU measures that continue to apply to Northern Ireland only runs to 75 pages of the Agreement.
It is also clear that the Prime Minister’s red line regarding the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice has been torn up. Under the Prime Minister’s plan, by 2022 we will either be in a backstop or still in transition, where we will continue to contribute to the EU budget and follow the rules overseen by the European Court of Justice.
Indeed the Foreign Secretary said on 25 November said only that the deal “largely ends the jurisdiction of the ECJ”. It is crystal clear that the Prime Minister’s claim that this plan means we take control over our laws, money and borders is utterly far-fetched.
On the Future Partnership, Mr Speaker, let’s be clear, there isn’t a deal, there is a “Framework for the Future Partnership”. Our trading relationship with Europe is still to be negotiated and will take years. We still don’t know what our long-term relationship with Europe would look like and that’s why so many MPs across Parliament are not willing to vote for this ‘blindfold Brexit’ and take a leap in the dark about Britain’s future.
There was no mention of the Prime Minister’s favoured term “implementation period” anywhere in the 600 pages of the Withdrawal Agreement. And no wonder – there is precious little new to implement spelt out in either the Agreement or the Future Partnership.
The Agreement does call it a “transition period” but there is nothing to transition to. It is a bridge to nowhere. As the 26 page document says, it “can lead to a spectrum of different outcomes as well as checks and controls”. After two years of negotiations all the government has really agreed is a vague wish-list.
And, Mr Speaker, only 3 of its 26 pages deal with trade. This is not a trade deal. It’s not even close to a trade deal. The trade deal recently signed between the EU and Canada took 7 years to negotiate and ran to 1,600 pages.
In two and a half years, this government has agreed three pages of text on trade. It’s hardly an encouraging start. The former Brexit Secretary committed to a “detailed”, “precise” and “substantive” document. We had the right to expect one. What we did get contains no mention of the “frictionless trade” promised in the Chequers proposals or even trade “as frictionless as possible”.
There is no ambition to negotiate a new comprehensive customs union with a British say, that would protect jobs, trade and industry and so uncertainty continues for business.
That demand for a new comprehensive customs union is one that united both the CBI and the TUC because it protects manufacturing supply chains. The decision to rule out a new customs union and the lack of clarity in the deal risks business investment being deferred on an even greater scale, costing jobs and living standards. And many companies may decide the lack of certainty means they will explore their contingency plans to relocate abroad.
Both the First Ministers of Wales and Scotland have also made clear to the Prime Minister that they would support participation in a customs union to protect the economy and jobs. A commitment to a new and comprehensive customs union could, I believe, have found support in this House.
The lack of clarity around these proposals also means there is no guarantee of a strong deal with the Single Market to ensure continued access to European markets in services, merely a vague commitment to go beyond the baseline of the WTO.
And as both the Attorney General and the Environment Secretary have made clear in recent days, the commitments to workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer safeguards are very far from secure.
The social Europe, that many people have supported and that was no part of why people voted to leave, is at risk from this deal. Mr Speaker, this deal fails to give so many economic sectors and public services clarity about our future relationship with several EU agencies and programmes.
Take the Galileo programme, to which the UK has so far contributed £1.2 billion but now we seem set to walk away from. Then there is the lack of clarity about whether we will continue to participate in the European Arrest Warrant, Europol and Eurojust.
The Chequers proposal argued for UK maintaining membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency and the European Medicines Agency, but the Future Partnership merely allows for “co-operation”.
We lack similar clarity about many others, including Horizon 2020 and Erasmus which has been so brilliant in providing students with opportunities to study in other countries.
And, Mr Speaker, there is no clarity about any future immigration system between the UK and the EU. And it now seems the Immigration White Paper we were promised in December 2017 won’t even appear in December 2018.
Following the Windrush scandal, many prospective migrants will have no confidence in this government to deliver a fair and efficient system and many EU nationals already here have no faith in this government to manage the process of settled status fairly or efficiently. These are people who have contributed to our country, to our economy and to our public services, especially our NHS and it is those people who are now so anxious.
Mr Speaker, to our negotiating partners in the EU, I say this: We understand why after two years of negotiations you want this resolved. But this Parliament represents the people of Britain and the deal negotiated by this Government is not good enough for the people of Britain. So, if Parliament votes down this deal, then re-opening negotiations cannot and should not be ruled out.
There is a deal that I believe can win the support of this House and bring the country together based on a new comprehensive and permanent customs union with a UK say, a strong single market deal, and real protection of workers’ rights and environmental and consumer safeguards.
Mr Speaker, as I conclude I want to pay tribute to my Hon friend, the member for Holborn and St Pancras who has led on this issue for HM Opposition and who is now facing his third Brexit Secretary.
This is not the deal the country was promised and Parliament cannot and I believe will not accept it. The false choice between this bad deal and no deal will also be rejected. People around the country are anxious, businesses and workers are anxious about the industries they work in, the jobs they hold and about the stability of this country.
The responsibility for this state of anxiety lies solely with this government. Two years of botched negotiations have led us here today.
Members of this House have an important decision, one week today. To vote for this deal would be to damage our economy, to make our constituents poorer and to take a leap in the dark with the future of our country.
Don’t take my word for it, the Government published its own economic assessment which found the Chequers proposals would make our economy nearly 4 per cent smaller than it would otherwise be, knocking off £100 billion from our economy within 15 years. For those who like to break down those sorts of figures into weekly amounts, that’s nearly £2 billion a week less and that definitely was not on the side of a bus.
Mr Speaker, Labour will vote against this deal – a bad deal for Britain, a bad deal for our economy and a bad deal for our democracy. Our country deserves better than this.
The deal before us would make our country worse off. Taken together, the Withdrawal Agreement and the Future Partnership represent a huge and damaging failure for Britain. The Prime Minister says this is a good deal and so confident is she of that that she refuses to publish the Government’s legal advice. However, the economic assessments tell us it is a bad deal.
These documents are the product of two years of botched negotiations in which the government spent more time arguing with itself than it did negotiating with the European Union. And it’s not only on Brexit where they have failed. The economy is weak, investment is poor, wage growth is weak, our public services are in crisis and local councils are collapsing.
More people are living in poverty, including half a million more children. Poverty is rising, homelessness is rising and household debt is rising too. Mr Speaker, it is against this backdrop that this Government has produced a botched deal that even breaches the Prime Minister’s own red lines.
Across this House it has united both Conservative remainers and Conservative leavers, with members of every opposition party in an extraordinary coalition against this bad deal.
Mr Speaker, it all could have been so different. Following the 2017 general election the Prime Minister could have attempted to build consensus, recognised the new arithmetic of Parliament and sought a deal that brought people together.
Instead just like her predecessor, who called a referendum without preparing for the eventuality of a Leave vote, the Prime Minister has seen these negotiations only as an exercise in the internal management of the Conservative Party. And she didn’t even manage that.
When the two previous Brexit Secretaries, who theoretically at least led the negotiations, say they cannot support the deal, how can she expect anyone else in this House or in the country to have faith in this deal?
Mr Speaker, no deal is not a real option and the government knows that because it has not seriously prepared for it. Eleven out of the twelve critical infrastructure projects that would need to be in place by the end of March 2019 to manage a no-deal Brexit are at risk of not being completed on time according to the National Audit Office.
Neither this House nor this Government will allow a ‘No deal’ scenario in March 2019 and neither would the EU, as they would be negatively impacted too and are not ready either.
Mr Speaker, the government must publish its full legal advice, as voted for by this House on 13 November. This is undoubtedly one of the most important debates in this House and Hon and Rt Hon members should be in full possession of all the facts, as is the clear will of the House.
In 2007 the Prime Minister argued that this House should have seen the full legal advice in advance of the Iraq war. I agreed with her then. So why doesn’t she still agree with herself now?
Mr Speaker, the Withdrawal Agreement is a leap in the dark. It takes us no closer to understanding what the future of our country post-Brexit would look like and neither does the Future Partnership, which I will come on to.
The Prime Minister states that the transition period ends in December 2020. Article 132 actually says that it can be extended for up to two years, to ‘31 December 2022’. The Business Secretary is already clear that it is likely to be extended until the end of 2022 and under this bad deal we would have to pay whatever the EU demands to extend it for those extra 2 years.
Under this deal, in December 2020 we will be faced with a choice: either pay more and extend the transition period or fall into the backstop. At that point, the UK would be over a barrel. We would have left the EU, have no UK rebate and be forced to pay whatever was demanded.
Alternatively, Article 185 (the Northern Ireland protocol) the backstop, would apply. Not only would that mean Northern Ireland would be subject to significantly different regulations than the rest of the UK but the EU has a right of veto over the UK’s exit from the backstop arrangement.
Whether in a backstop or in an extended transition, the UK would have no say over the rules. We would have already given up our seat at the Council of ministers, our Commissioner, and our MEPs without having negotiated any alternative say in our future.
This Government is not taking back control. It is losing control. No wonder the Science Minister (Hon member for East Surrey) resigned, saying this deal will cost us “our voice, our vote and our veto”.
The last two years give us no confidence that this government can do a deal in under two years. So at some point before December 2020, the focus would then inevitably shift from negotiations on the future relationship to negotiations on an extension to the transition period, including negotiating what further payments we should make to the EU.
So we are over a barrel, either paying whatever is demanded or negotiating away fishing rights, making concessions on Gibraltar or who knows what else? This is a terrible failure of negotiation.
Should the backstop come into force, there is no time limit or end point. It locks Britain into a deal from which it cannot leave without the agreement of the EU. This is, I believe, the first time in UK history that we would have signed up to a Treaty that we could not leave of our own volition.
And in the backstop restrictions on state aid are hard-wired with an arbitration mechanism but no such guarantees exist for workers’ rights. New state aid rules could be brought in whether they were in Britain’s interests or not. The Attorney General made this clear yesterday.
In the backstop the regulatory frameworks dealt with by non-regression clauses “are non-enforceable by EU institutions or by arbitration arrangements” and would give the Government the power to tear up workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer safeguards.
The backstop would apply separate regulatory rules to Northern Ireland. This is despite the fact that the current Prime Minister said this is something “no UK Prime Minister could ever agree to”. Another of her red lines, breached. In fact the list of EU measures that continue to apply to Northern Ireland only runs to 75 pages of the Agreement.
It is also clear that the Prime Minister’s red line regarding the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice has been torn up. Under the Prime Minister’s plan, by 2022 we will either be in a backstop or still in transition, where we will continue to contribute to the EU budget and follow the rules overseen by the European Court of Justice.
Indeed the Foreign Secretary said on 25 November said only that the deal “largely ends the jurisdiction of the ECJ”. It is crystal clear that the Prime Minister’s claim that this plan means we take control over our laws, money and borders is utterly far-fetched.
On the Future Partnership, Mr Speaker, let’s be clear, there isn’t a deal, there is a “Framework for the Future Partnership”. Our trading relationship with Europe is still to be negotiated and will take years. We still don’t know what our long-term relationship with Europe would look like and that’s why so many MPs across Parliament are not willing to vote for this ‘blindfold Brexit’ and take a leap in the dark about Britain’s future.
There was no mention of the Prime Minister’s favoured term “implementation period” anywhere in the 600 pages of the Withdrawal Agreement. And no wonder – there is precious little new to implement spelt out in either the Agreement or the Future Partnership.
The Agreement does call it a “transition period” but there is nothing to transition to. It is a bridge to nowhere. As the 26 page document says, it “can lead to a spectrum of different outcomes as well as checks and controls”. After two years of negotiations all the government has really agreed is a vague wish-list.
And, Mr Speaker, only 3 of its 26 pages deal with trade. This is not a trade deal. It’s not even close to a trade deal. The trade deal recently signed between the EU and Canada took 7 years to negotiate and ran to 1,600 pages.
In two and a half years, this government has agreed three pages of text on trade. It’s hardly an encouraging start. The former Brexit Secretary committed to a “detailed”, “precise” and “substantive” document. We had the right to expect one. What we did get contains no mention of the “frictionless trade” promised in the Chequers proposals or even trade “as frictionless as possible”.
There is no ambition to negotiate a new comprehensive customs union with a British say, that would protect jobs, trade and industry and so uncertainty continues for business.
That demand for a new comprehensive customs union is one that united both the CBI and the TUC because it protects manufacturing supply chains. The decision to rule out a new customs union and the lack of clarity in the deal risks business investment being deferred on an even greater scale, costing jobs and living standards. And many companies may decide the lack of certainty means they will explore their contingency plans to relocate abroad.
Both the First Ministers of Wales and Scotland have also made clear to the Prime Minister that they would support participation in a customs union to protect the economy and jobs. A commitment to a new and comprehensive customs union could, I believe, have found support in this House.
The lack of clarity around these proposals also means there is no guarantee of a strong deal with the Single Market to ensure continued access to European markets in services, merely a vague commitment to go beyond the baseline of the WTO.
And as both the Attorney General and the Environment Secretary have made clear in recent days, the commitments to workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer safeguards are very far from secure.
The social Europe, that many people have supported and that was no part of why people voted to leave, is at risk from this deal. Mr Speaker, this deal fails to give so many economic sectors and public services clarity about our future relationship with several EU agencies and programmes.
Take the Galileo programme, to which the UK has so far contributed £1.2 billion but now we seem set to walk away from. Then there is the lack of clarity about whether we will continue to participate in the European Arrest Warrant, Europol and Eurojust.
The Chequers proposal argued for UK maintaining membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency and the European Medicines Agency, but the Future Partnership merely allows for “co-operation”.
We lack similar clarity about many others, including Horizon 2020 and Erasmus which has been so brilliant in providing students with opportunities to study in other countries.
And, Mr Speaker, there is no clarity about any future immigration system between the UK and the EU. And it now seems the Immigration White Paper we were promised in December 2017 won’t even appear in December 2018.
Following the Windrush scandal, many prospective migrants will have no confidence in this government to deliver a fair and efficient system and many EU nationals already here have no faith in this government to manage the process of settled status fairly or efficiently. These are people who have contributed to our country, to our economy and to our public services, especially our NHS and it is those people who are now so anxious.
Mr Speaker, to our negotiating partners in the EU, I say this: We understand why after two years of negotiations you want this resolved. But this Parliament represents the people of Britain and the deal negotiated by this Government is not good enough for the people of Britain. So, if Parliament votes down this deal, then re-opening negotiations cannot and should not be ruled out.
There is a deal that I believe can win the support of this House and bring the country together based on a new comprehensive and permanent customs union with a UK say, a strong single market deal, and real protection of workers’ rights and environmental and consumer safeguards.
Mr Speaker, as I conclude I want to pay tribute to my Hon friend, the member for Holborn and St Pancras who has led on this issue for HM Opposition and who is now facing his third Brexit Secretary.
This is not the deal the country was promised and Parliament cannot and I believe will not accept it. The false choice between this bad deal and no deal will also be rejected. People around the country are anxious, businesses and workers are anxious about the industries they work in, the jobs they hold and about the stability of this country.
The responsibility for this state of anxiety lies solely with this government. Two years of botched negotiations have led us here today.
Members of this House have an important decision, one week today. To vote for this deal would be to damage our economy, to make our constituents poorer and to take a leap in the dark with the future of our country.
Don’t take my word for it, the Government published its own economic assessment which found the Chequers proposals would make our economy nearly 4 per cent smaller than it would otherwise be, knocking off £100 billion from our economy within 15 years. For those who like to break down those sorts of figures into weekly amounts, that’s nearly £2 billion a week less and that definitely was not on the side of a bus.
Mr Speaker, Labour will vote against this deal – a bad deal for Britain, a bad deal for our economy and a bad deal for our democracy. Our country deserves better than this.
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I have.
This summarises Corbyn's contribution to Brexit for the past two and half years.
Ok criticise May but come up with some possibility of an alternative. His sole contribution is a new custom union. Umm...
Don't think him or Labour have cottoned on that this is about the withdrawal agreement not a trade agreement for the future. More concentration was needed.
If you leave you don't get the benefits of the EU. Someone ought to tell him. At least it has finally dawned on May, not yet on Corbyn.
Not that it's important but for the first time I've seen the BBC comments section is all Remain supporting.
The Tory party machine as despicable as i find it is fecking impressive. May shifting the argument and debate is expected but they do it on mass, constantly in the media to get across their latest argument to the public.
Why would anybody want to hear a repeat of the same soundbites?
This.
The while bullshit is a waste of time.
So what did decades of being in the eu do for your region once Thatcher ruined it?
That is what I thought. The UK parliament can't vote against no deal as that is already the default that will occur unless another choice is actually taken with the EU's agreement. Renegotiation is pretty much off the table I thought, so it is the current deal, a quick request to revoke A50 or we drop out hard Brexit style in March.
Years of shit tory rule and austerity led to the ref result and whats happening in France, so yeah, he has a point.
The areas worst affected by Thatcher have been helped the most by the EU than other areas.
For example West Wales and Cornwall gets 800 quid per person per year from the EU. That will be gone.
I heard that the conservative whips didn't put any pressure on people not to back the grieve motion
The theory apparently being that as the grieve amendment will possibly lead to an ultimately softer brexit it could pursuade brexiteers to vote for Mays deal to guarantee brexit happens.
The theory apparently being that as the grieve amendment will possibly lead to an ultimately softer brexit it could pursuade brexiteers to vote for Mays deal to guarantee brexit happens.
Corbyn and Labor don't come out of this with any credit either. Not as utterly rubbish as the Tories but their do nothing for fear of pissing either side off is political cowardice for political expediency.
We are trusting old, technologically illiterate mp’s to state timeframes.
They’re all as clueless as our parents.
These are not smart people.
And how have their lives improved? What jobs are they all doing instead of mining? Thought the guy was talking north east?
The poll misses the most important questions.
Given the choice, would people rather;
- Kill Corbyn using only Mays body parts
- Kill May using only Corbyns body parts
- Have sex with Farage’s corpse using Corbyns organs while wearing Mays face as a mask.
In the age of Trump, the UK has done something truly stupendous to be able to make America look organised.
I hate this joke of a system we have. If this is the best that it can produce, they should all be shot.
#ImNowOnTheList
Given the choice, would people rather;
- Kill Corbyn using only Mays body parts
- Kill May using only Corbyns body parts
- Have sex with Farage’s corpse using Corbyns organs while wearing Mays face as a mask.
In the age of Trump, the UK has done something truly stupendous to be able to make America look organised.
I hate this joke of a system we have. If this is the best that it can produce, they should all be shot.
#ImNowOnTheList