Corbyn thinks it is 26 pages of waffle, Ben Bradshaw thinks it will make people poorer, Angela Eagle wants to know what has happened to frictionless trade, Rees-Mogg wonders if EU law is superior to UK law, Justine Greening reckons it’s a bad deal, while Sir Jeffery Donaldson thinks the backstop is unacceptable. Theresa May must sometimes wonder how she ever ended up in this position. It took 47 minutes of debate in the Commons for someone to praise the Brexit deal which surely does not bode well for the chances of May’s proposals getting through Parliament.
Robert Peston reported that May has a cunning plan to get her Brexit deal through Parliament which, if true, beggars belief. Amber Rudd suggested that when Tory rebels reject the Brexit deal and realise the disastrous effects, they will do an about-turn and back the deal. This is something we urge you to give serious thought to, as it could create levels of volatility not seen for some time. The article we have linked to above explains it in detail, but if you play with fire it is entirely possible you will get burned. Worrying times indeed.
The pound had a fairly good day, although it wasn’t quite as good as it looked like being at one point. Sterling jumped as high as $1.2927 against the dollar before falling back below $1.29 as investors tried to take stock of the day’s developments or lack of. Sunday could be crunch time, with EU leaders set to announce whether they approve the Brexit political declaration text.
We appear to be in a bizarre position, where May is looking to secure agreement from EU leaders and will then go back to UK MPs saying “This is the best we can hope for, so you have to support it really.” That’s certainly a far cry from Liam Fox’s claim that the EU trade deal should be ‘one of the easiest in human history’. It now looks as if we’ll take whatever we can get.