Having listened to various MPs explaining why they are not going to vote for the deal tonight I have to say that most of them appear not to understand that comparing the deal with remaining in the EU is totally irrelevant because every deal under the sun is not as good as staying in the EU and in any case staying in the EU is not an option because the referendum made it clear that the people want to leave and parliament is therefore under an obligation to deliver that outcome.
Others say it’s unacceptable that deal does not provide a trade agreement. Don’t they realise that EU law prevents the negotiation of permanent future trade agreements until we have actually left the EU.
They talk about other countries taking 7 or 8 years to reach a trade agreement. Don’t they realise that we start off in a totally different position because we already follow all EU regulations and this is the part of setting up an agreement which takes most of the time.
Some say that it is unacceptable that we will have to pay the £49B exit fee without knowing what the future trade agreement will be. Don’t they realise that £20M is to pay for the 21 months implementation period (the same rate that we pay now) and £29M to pay for our future obligations resulting from our 40 year membership of the club which we are legally obliged to pay no matter what: pensions and goodness knows what!
Others talk about the Irish Backstop as if it might be a permanent state of affairs when EU law makes that impossible. It has to be temporary no matter what happens which means those who talk about our being rule takers not makers and all that kind of nonsense are talking about a temporary situation.
The DUP don’t like there being differences in regulations between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK when this is already so. The border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is a figment of their imagination. The border in the Irish Sea is a figment of their imagination.
Some talk about the free movement of people across the Irish Border being affected but this is guaranteed by a previous agreement no matter what happens – even no deal!
I won’t even talk about Corbyn the Communist wanting to stay in the customs union and single market, being prepared to pay for that and promising that we will still have a say in the making of new regulations. The latter is impossible and even if it were to happen we wouldn’t be able to make trade agreements with other countries! He talks about the deal as half in half out when his deal is all in!
I can only presume that the dastardly plan was to provide a deal which would be voted down so that Parliament could then hold another referendum and stay in the EU as most of them have always wanted! I’m happy for this outcome naturally as all the arguments for leaving are totally spurious and it seems like a good idea to make it possible for those who didn’t really understand what voting out meant to change their mind if the so wish.
For example the free movement of people. It has always been the case that we can oblige immigrants to have a job set up before they come to the UK and can ask them to leave if they lose that job and can’t get another one.
The laws they are talking about us taking control of are just regulations regarding the quality & safety of products and the health of any animals involved in their production. Who cares who makes them as long as they’re good regulations. In any case, if we want to sell our products to the EU after leaving we have to produce them under those regulations.
Saving the £250 million net that we are paying to the EU each week when in practice we will probably lose more than that in reduced GDP because we have left the EU!
Not having a say in the production of regulations when in fact we have MEPs in the European parliament who have just as much say as the MEPs of every other country!