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A group of influential conservative Brexiters have declared their support for the EU trade deal agreed to by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The European Research Group (ERG) said the deal, reached with Brussels on Christmas Eve, “preserves the sovereignty of the UK as a matter of law.”
Its “star chamber” of legal experts, including former Brexit minister David Jones and veteran eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash, added that the agreement “fully respects sovereign-to-sovereign international treaty rules.”
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What does the Brexit trade deal include?
Although they said that the “level playing field” clauses in the agreement – on common rules and standards with the EU – “go further than in comparable trade agreements”, they judged that their impact “will likely be limited if addressed by a strong government” .
“In any case, they do not prevent the UK from changing its laws as it sees fit with the risk of tariff countermeasures, and if they were unacceptable, the agreement could be terminated 12 months in advance,” their analysis concluded.
The ERG’s endorsement of the trade deal provides a significant boost for Johnson, after several of its members previously denied support for former Prime Minister Theresa May’s unfortunate divorce deal last year.
Commenting on the “star chamber” verdict, prominent conservative supporter Steve Baker, one of the ERG “Spartans” who repeatedly voted against May’s deal, said: “I love when a plan goes well.”
MPs are due to vote on Johnson’s trade deal on Wednesday, and the government hopes the 1,246-page deal can be ratified by parliament in a single day.
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‘We have regained control of our laws and our destiny’
If approved, the trade deal will go into effect on January 1, after the end of the Brexit transition period later this year.
Johnson should see the deal go through the House of Commons with little trouble, after Labor said they would vote for the deal.
The party’s shadow business minister, Lucy Powell, told Sky News on Tuesday that the trade deal “is not as comprehensive as we would like or as promised to the country.”
But he said MPs now face a “binary choice” between approving the trade deal or having the UK leave the Brexit transition period with the “catastrophic consequences” of no deal.
Powell added that he understood the vote would be a “difficult issue” for his fellow Labor MPs, amid signs that several of them might rebel and vote against the deal.
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Barnier: ‘Nothing to celebrate about divorce’
Former shadow cabinet ministers John McDonnell, Clive Lewis and Ben Bradshaw are among a list of Labor figures who signed a statement urging the party not to support the trade deal.
The DUP will vote against the deal as it continues to voice its dissatisfaction with the provisions for the Irish border, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, that Johnson signed last year.
The SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats have also said they will vote against the deal.
Sometime on Wednesday, the Prime Minister will sign the deal on behalf of the UK in Downing Street.
The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will sign the agreement on behalf of the EU on Wednesday morning.
On Monday, EU ambassadors met to unanimously approve the post-Brexit trade deal as part of Brussels’ own ratification process.
It means that the deal, which covers £ 660bn of trade, can now move on to formal ratification by the European Parliament, although this will come after the deal is already in place in the New Year.
