Why Boris must not cave in again
(A short, punchy summary of why Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement reeks of Remainerdom)
This is why Boris must reject the entire ‘deal’ and start again
Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP | Rt Hon Theresa May MP, Prime Minister | Olly Robbins, civil servant | Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, Chairman of ERG
Brexit Facts4EU.Org presents a simple 15-point summary of the May-Robbins-EU 'deal'
Below we’ve updated the work we did earlier this year. It is the shortest summary we’ve seen anywhere, demonstrating why the likes of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg should never have caved in and voted for Mrs May’s surrender document, as they did.
This is not an exit and future trade agreement
This is not an agreement setting out how the UK and the EU27 will close the UK’s membership and how they will do business together after Brexit. The two sides had 31 months to agree such terms but failed to do so, mostly because the EU refused even to discuss it for the majority of this time.
Crucially, the Northern Ireland Backstop is just one of the many reasons to tear up this document and start afresh.
This is a one-sided international treaty, drafted by the EU with the complicity of a Remainer Prime Minister and her Remainer civil servants, the likes of which has never been seen outside of a surrender document following a country’s defeat in war. It would have defined the UK's subjugation to foreign powers for decades to come.
15 reasons why Mrs May’s
Withdrawal Agreement is an abomination
even without the Backstop
- This ‘Agreement’ would have put the UK under the de facto jurisdiction of a group of 27 foreign powers, with no ability to veto laws or procedures affecting the UK and its citizens
- The EU27 could have made decisions in Council behind closed doors, with no published minutes, which would have profoundly affected British businesses, citizens, and the economy
- The EU27 could even have imposed new taxes on the UK, and Parliament could do nothing about it
- The EU27 could have crippled the vitally-important UK financial sector, with new taxes and regulations
- One part of the Agreement (the Northern Ireland Protocol) locked the UK into a permanent customs union with the EU, with no unilateral right of the UK to terminate
- The Northern Ireland Protocol required the Province to obey existing and new Single Market rules, with no say over them, and it effectively split off Northern Ireland into being a colony of the EU and the Republic, thereby breaking the United Kingdom in two
- The UK would have had no right to do international free trade deals – a key economic benefit of Brexit – because it must stick to protectionist EU tariffs. The British public could not have benefited from an independent trade policy resulting in cheaper imported goods, nor could our exporters have thrived
- Any new EU free trade agreements with other countries would have required the UK to match the new lower tariffs, but the countries involved would not have been required to reciprocate in respect of the UK
- The UK would have remained under the jurisdiction of the ECJ until at least the end of 2020 and the agreement makes provision to extend this until 2022
- In some parts of the law, British courts would have had to obey the ECJ for over 100 years - the lifetimes of as yet unborn children
- The UK would not be a truly sovereign nation in the lifetimes of all reading this
- The Agreement would have meant the UK paying at least £39 billion, despite there being no legal obligation to pay anything like that amount, and with no new UK-EU trade deal guaranteed in return
- The final amount taken from British taxpayers would be decided by the EU, and the UK would have had no say because the ECJ would rule on this
- Other aspects of the Agreement and Political Declaration would have adversely affected the UK’s autonomy in fishing, defence, foreign policy, competition law, state aid and many other areas of life
- The Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration together locked the UK into a continuing and subservient relationship with the EU, agreeing to match and “build upon” current arrangements, giving away money, sovereignty, laws, and even decisions on the very composition of the United Kingdom itself.
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 12 Jul 2019
Would you like to use this summary?
Caveat
In summarising a 585-page document, plus the 26 pages of the Political Declaration, we have not been able to qualify or nuance every statement above, nor to include all the terrible aspects of this ‘deal’.
It is a summary, but at least it’s readable by ordinary voters, and by MPs who don’t seem to have read the most important treaty they were ever called to vote upon.
Observations
As we pointed out in our article yesterday, much of the talk around a 'deal' with the EU has revolved around the Northern Ireland Backstop.
In the months following the rejection of Mrs May's 'deal' the Backstop has still featured prominently in speeches and interviews. Whilst the Backstop is wholly unacceptable, it has dominated over many of the other parts of the 'deal' which are equally unacceptable.
'Come what may, do or die'
With the election of a new Prime Minister imminent, we believe it is essential to stress that no 'tweaking' of this agreement to exclude or water down the Backstop provisions would come close to making the rest of it a reasonable basis on which to proceed.
This entire document - and the accompanying 'Political Declaration' - must be torn up.
After three years, Mrs May has left the country with a situation where the EU cannot possibly back down. Yes, the EU was extremely foolish to think (because they were dealing with Remainers) that they could impose punishment conditions on the UK and get away with it. That said, we are where we are. No new comprehensive 'deal' is possible before 31 October.
There is a solution which Boris must grasp and run with
Given the absolute imperative to leave the EU completely on 31 October, the solution is a 'multi-deal', clean, WTO-terms Brexit. When Boris talks of exiting the EU without a deal as being "a one in a million chance", we assume he is intending to follow this course.
The EU has already stated that it will unilaterally agree to keep planes flying and trucks rolling, as well as a raft of other measures. With Boris' charm, it is surely not beyond his talents to put these into some form of 'understanding' on a bilateral basis, which he can then describe as a deal to Parliament and the British people.
The one thing he cannot and must not do under any circumstances is to attempt any form of 'fudge' on the EU's current offering, agreed in principle by Mrs May.
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[ Sources : Draft Withdrawal Agreement | Draft Political Declaration | Hansard ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 12 Jul 2019
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