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WWho would have guessed it? When it came time to push, it turned out that a bad deal was better than no deal after all. The first agreement in history to put more barriers in the way of free trade than the one that preceded it. A 1,200-page treaty and an 80-page bill that was given just four and a half hours of what went through to be considered in a retired House of Commons to allow it to become law before the end of the year. In most countries this would be called a sham – here in the UK we call it a return of parliamentary sovereignty.
At least that was the way Boris Johnson was selling the deal to his eager backbenchers, who were desperate to applaud his negotiating skills and risky politics, when he opened the debate. Just as it was. The feeling of anticlimax was almost tangible. Almost as if the Conservatives also had to fool themselves that the deal was what they had always wanted.
But this was Boris’s big day, and he was determined to make the most of it. It is not often that you can claim that you have kept a promise, even if much of what was in the promise bore little resemblance to the previous promises you had made. So the truth has always been a moving target for Johnson. Certainly, there was nothing over an additional £ 350 million for the NHS each week. But that bus left years ago.
The prime minister started with the good thing about having no tariffs or trade quotas and rather ignored all the possible drawbacks. There was certainly nothing in Brexit to even out the UK economy – Boris seems to have slowly realized that it had been 10 years of conservative governments and not the EU that had widened the equality gap in the country.
Rather, Johnson tried to sell the deal as a favor not only to the UK but to the EU as well, because it would mean we stop behaving like a country unhappy with the relationship and continue to have affairs. It’s not you, baby, it’s me. So now we would move to a more open marriage where a little infidelity was tolerated. You have the feeling that he has used this line many times in the past. To round it off, he concluded by saying that no one loved Europe more than him and to think of Brexit as a resolution rather than a break. Which did not square with Boris’s years of anti-European rhetoric. But consistency has never been its strongest point.
In response, Keir Starmer declared for the first time that Labor would support the bill, as the no-deal Brexit alternative would cause even more disruption and put more companies out of business. But having played the national interest card, the Labor leader did a quick recap of some of Johnson’s lies – only last week had he made a speech saying there would be no non-tariff barriers when the reality was bureaucratic hoarding – before moving in about the limitations of the deal.
Starting with the complete absence of details for the service sector, especially financial services. The Conservatives had just negotiated 80% of the economy to secure the main trade deal: the French and the Germans were laughing all the way to the bank. Then there was the lack of access to European criminal databases coupled with the lack of recognition of UK professional qualifications. I could go on. This was the slimmest deal, one that had only been achieved through the UK’s desperation to leave the EU before the end of the year.
Although she vowed to back the bill, Theresa May was lukewarm in her support, noting that she had had a much better deal on the table that would have passed if the Labor Party had been willing to back it. She was right. To no one’s surprise, SNP Commons leader Ian Blackford said his party would not support the bill, as Scotland had voted to stay in the EU and Johnson’s deal offered them next to nothing. He was also right.
As the debate progressed, it became clear that Johnson had at least accomplished something that no conservative leader had accomplished in decades. He had joined his party, if only temporarily, in Europe. So it was work done for Boris, as Brexit had only mainly been about divisions within his own party. It was a shame that he had to take all the talent out of the banks and replace them with men and women of his own in the process.
Even the Brexit ringleaders of the European Research Group flipped like cats. In years past, William Cash had been prepared to defend the British fishing industry and the integrity of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. Now he was happily prepared to sacrifice both of them. Northern Ireland could become an EU colony, and who gave a damn about fish anyway? Cash compared Johnson to Pericles and Alexander the Great. The rest of the Commons compared Cash to a man without conscience or qualities. Meanwhile, David Davis proved just as absurd, insisting that a worse deal with the EU was actually a better deal than one in which we kept the same benefits. Go figure. Liam Fox claimed that the union would be stronger due to Brexit. It hadn’t sounded that way.
Kevin Brennan was the first Labor MP to break the party line by saying he would not vote for the deal. His logic that parliament should have more time for scrutiny by extending the transition period was impeccable. Until the moment he recalled that Johnson was a career psychopath and would have pulled the UK out of the EU on December 31 without a deal if he hadn’t gotten away with it.
That was pretty much the point Rachel Reeves made in her closing speech when she reiterated Labor support for what was a crap deal, pointing to the seven amendments she had tried to introduce in the process as the lesser of two evils. Shutting down for the government, Michael Gove was his usual unbearable self. Snooty, unfunny, unaware of himself (he somehow thinks the extra bureaucracy will make companies “fit in”) and still prioritizing scoring over trying to unite the country.
The session ended with a groan as the bill sped through its second, commission and third reading at breakneck speed by a large majority. But anyone who imagined that that was the last we would hear about Brexit had missed the point. The lack of detail in the trade bill and conflict resolution methods promised a whole new world of pain. Months and years later, Conservative MPs might not be bought off so easily if the economy stagnates. Boris better watch his back.
