Mr Speaker
May I congratulate Boris Johnson
Truly
He is our Lion King as Robert Halfon calls him
Our herd leader with his massive success of coronavirus where as Priti Patel says we have always been ahead of the curve.
A Prime Minister whose achievements will go down in the annals of British history in infamy.
The focus of my speech shall be three pillars.
How did you win?
What did you win?
Where do we go from here?
But first I want to change tack and go to what I know is a favourite topic of the Prime Minister's: American Presidents.
I Know the Prime Minister has a deep ancestral hatred - sorry respect - for American Presidents.
As an Islington inhabitant once upon a time I know that his respect for America birthed out of a deep love for that nation and out of a deep desire to avoid his tax obligations to the Internal Revenue Service.
How was it the Prime Minister put it: “Why should I? I haven’t lived in the United States for, you know, well, since I was five years old”.
First I want to touch on Aunt Rebecca and their second letter.
“Dear girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you at all. Too well I know how much you suffer; but do, do, remember, it is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.”
I know the Prime Minister has a pent up avalanche of passion for girls as the Baron of Hampton and Siberia can attest to & also carries within him a avalanche of passion for his technology tutor as much as for his favourite violinist
I jest of course. Aunt Rebecca was of course in her second letter written under a pseudonym.
To quote from Abraham Lincoln: “I should regret to see the day in which the people should cease to express intelligent, honest generous criticism upon the policy of their rulers.”
So I am going to follow Abraham's plea.
And because of course I know that Boris Johnson is across his brief and is capable of playing the ball I am sure he will live up to responding in equal and honest measure. My hindsight oh yeah tells me otherwise.
I want my country to get better
I want my country to improve
I want my country to well to borrow a phrase be best
I want my country to level up (although I want to know from what and whom)
I want my country to mightily prosper
Now I want to congratulate 37.4% of the electorate on the 23rd June 2016.
You scored a win.
You won.
Even when you were up against Jeremy Corbyn who is so used to winning the argument.
Maybe he did win - in a quiet internal way - the argument he wanted to.
But there are three questions that arise from that win.
And they are simple questions.
How did you win?
What did you win?
How do we move on?
Now for the first of these questions
I have family, friends, colleagues who voted to Leave on 23rd June 2016.
And I don't think they are stupid.
I don't think they are racists.
I think they made a choice.
So I am going to touch on how with the aid of 10 topics
1. Media
2. Franchise
3. Cheating
4. Scapegoating
5. Lies
6. Expertise
7. Simplism
8. Plan
9. Respect
10. NI Border
Just 10 simple topics
So first on the media
The media has for decades spun a web of lies and racism, xenophobia and nativist jingoism with which to smear the EU
And to aid deflecting from the consequences of Conservative Party policy
One of its chief propagandists sits opposite me
His biggest regret is that he does not earn as Prime Minister the hourly rate that he enjoyed whilst a "journalist."
I would quote a former boss of the Prime Minister
"I have argued for a decade that, while he is a brilliant entertainer who made a popular maître d’ for London as its mayor, he is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification."
The media predominantly in this country by readership served up by the Barclay Brothers, Richard Desmond, Rupert Murdoch and the shillsters they employ.
The range of newspapers who by 82% by readership sold the country lies, racism in bias of leaving the EU.
Television news well - it faced real challenges in a campaign of how to give balance amidst a campaign where so many lies were spaffed you barely had time to question the first lie before more followed on.
You can of course recall the quote attributed to Rupert Murdoch
“I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union.
“‘That’s easy,’ he replied. ‘When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.’
To give Rupert balance - he rebutted it saying
“There is much fake news published about me, but let me make clear that I have never uttered those words. I have made it a principle all my life never to ask for anything from any prime minister.”
Now if I accept Rupert at his words
Of course he never has to ask
It is given proffered automatically
See: Theresa May and her private worship before Rupert in New York.
And a reminder of Australia & the Murdoch press
“This power is routinely used to attack opponents in business & politics by blending editorial opinion with news reporting. contrary views are intimidated into silence. These facts chill free speech and undermine public debate.”
Secondly we move onto the franchise.
Now there are two main areas here where I would flag concern
The first is a promise by the Conservative Party
Their 2015 manifesto
“We will complete the electoral register, by working to include more of the five million Britons who live abroad. We will introduce votes for life, scrapping the rule that bars British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years from voting”
See also Michael Green
Sorry I meant Grant Shapps
“Being a British citizen is for life. It gives you the lifelong right to be protected by our military and Foreign Office, and to travel on a British passport. We believe it should also give you the lifelong right to vote."
Why would you not honour that promise in time for the 2016 referendum?
Why?
It's a simple question.
The second is the vote for 16 - 18 year olds
I do not care how 16 - 18 year olds may vote
I want to focus on the principle that they be allowed to vote
I recall many of the debates in the Scottish Independence Referendum
Those with young people
Were some of the best
See Danny Alexander
"Some of the best debates & discussion I have had about the Scottish referendum have been with young people in schools and Newsbeat's"
" We deem 16-year-olds adult enough to join the army, to have sex, get married, leave home and work full-time. The evidence of the referendum suggests that, clearly, they are old enough to vote too."
Before she abandoned every shred of principles to affirm her thrall to the cult that is sitting opposite me.
To focus on part of her words
"In the weeks following the referendum, the debate has inevitably shifted onto whether the franchise should now be extended to all other elections."
Now the question is not whether 16 to 18 year olds are mature enough
They are
The question becomes
Why do you fear them voting?
That's the simple one
To David Cameron and his party
Why did you fear them?
Was it just that you knew you would never get your party to vote to support their enfranchisement?
Why did you fear British citizens living overseas?
I do not want you to suffer "fear"
I want to know why you were afraid.
Third we move onto cheating.
So first of all we start
With Steve Baker
And an email that outlined schemes to break spending limits during the general election campaign.
Steve's defence of that email has varied over the years
For 4 plus years
The cheating of leave campaigns
Has been well established
All that is left is the question of how you defend it
Which as always in brexit
It's the how you defend the behaviour that is fascinating
Essentially it boils down to well all politicians lie from the various brexiteer tropes that have been employed over 4 plus years to justify it
I should thank the tropes
They admit the deceit, lies and the con
See Theresa May
Who
Well
She outed
AND then sacked a whistleblower on electoral cheating
Imagine doing that
Imagine being silent as a Prime Minister did that
Why I would have thought at least some of her cabinet would raise objection and resign on principle
Possibly Sajid Javid - or do his principles only apply when it comes to his friends and power base
Or even her party of MPs
Theresa May of course got really upset at cheating
In cricket
"The Prime Minister is clear that cheating has absolutely no place in cricket or indeed in any sport.
Or of course you have Michael Gove
Who is so so proud of his role in the campaign
His role in Core Group of Vote Leave
Yet cannot recall any detail of what he did
It all fades into the fog of memory
Fourth we get onto scapegoating.
If one thing is true
Sadly of history
In so many countries
Not just the UK
It is that othering
And scapegoating
Is a familiar theme
It is an easy go to route
To well
Encourage anger and fear
After all
It is easy to point the finger at bogey men and say they are to blame for your troubles, your concerns, your fears.
What you do.
Is poison the bloodstream of a nation with decades of lies about the European Union.
You suppress reports on the positive benefits that migration brings to this country.
You avoid having a debate about the demographic crisis facing all western nations.
Instead
You exploit a global financial crash.
You exploit it to smear your opponents with.
And to incite hatred of elites, institutions
And of course
As always
The eternal go to topic of all scapegoating
The other
The immigrant
The refugee
Now scapegoating is not new
It is not original
It is not novel
Brexit did not introduce this poison
It used what was already there
Added to it
Inflamed it
Having "won" in 2010
David Cameron and his party
Had the gall to accuse Nigel Farage's party of being "fruitcakes and racists"
They were not able to play the ball
For a simple reason
They took his ball
The Conservative Party because it could not own the consequences of the austerity policy it chose
Chose instead to resort to racism and xenophobia as a deflection from the effects of its policies
A PM who needed something to steal the thunder of UKIP and stem its rise
And to deflect from his policies that even his mother and aunt could be honest about their effects.
Add to that of course Theresa May - a Home Secretary who showed Boris Johnson just how well a minister can suppress reports
Suppress reports that show the positives of immigration
And of course Operation Vaken
So brexit exploited that racism and xenophobia
It weaponised it
As Dominic Cummings put it
"Pundits and MPs kept saying ‘why isn’t Leave arguing about the economy and living standards’. They did not realise that for millions of people, £350m/NHS was about the economy and living standards – that’s why it was so effective. "
"It was clearly the most effective argument not only with the crucial swing fifth but with almost every demographic. Even with UKIP voters it was level-pegging with immigration. Would we have won without immigration? No. "
"Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests No. Would we have won by spending our time talking about trade and the Single Market? No way"
I would update a quote from another American President, Andrew Shepherd (a fictional one)
"Boris's problem is that he can't sell it!"
"He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it"
So the racism, xenophobia and islamophobia all deliberately and wilfully employed by Vote Leave and Leave EU
The lies on wages
The lies on societal pressures
The lies on schools
The lies on housing
The lies on hospitals
The lies on the threat to UK culture
Those racists for a simple reason peddled their bile
It worked
The demonisation of fellow EU citizens.
The demonisation of refugees.
The doctoring of campaign videos of the Turkish Parliament to incite islamophobia
Imagine doing that doctoring
Imagine being ok with that doctoring
There is no bottom to that barrel is there James Cleverly.
Perhaps you can tell us about Fact Check UK.
The sad culmination of that racism, xenophobia and islamophobia is that it fuelled a nasty, sick attitude across this country that ended in the murder of Jo Cox MP.
And even when the campaign was suspended after her death - those who peddled it didn't pause in their bile
ANd having won with the aid of racism, xenophobia and islamophobia.
You then when faced with the police reports of that effect.
Rubbish it as improved reporting or media hysteria.
Hardly surprising really - after all if the Prime Minister's words on letter boxes and bank robbers can be ignored by a party.
Then that party can silently abide any racism as long as it serves their cause.
Fifth we move onto lies
I will put this back up from point 1 on the media
If only I could think of an ex-prominent "journalist" at the Telegraph
Who enjoyed his job and the freedom it gave him to spout lies
He will be back there soon
He has a nanny he needs to afford after all and the miserly salary he receives as Prime Minister and the grace and favour residences and lifestyle he has a Prime Minister does not make him happy
He needs his Telegraph hourly rate back
So I am going to focus on just a few of those lies
1. a bus
2. on audits
3. on company movements
4. on protectionism
First of all
Let's get that damn red bus out of the fucking way
I can hear the groan's from brexiteers
not that f***ing red bus
It wasn't a promise
It didn't persuade anyone
Ok
It didn't persuade anyone
Why was it used then?
Really?
The red bus was tuned and focus group polled specifically BECAUSE of its target desired effect
Dominic Cummings admitted its effect
One simple bus
With one simple lie
You know what is worse
Not that people believed
But that liars had such contempt for taking people for fools that they would believe it
The £350 million a week figure was a lie
The promise was a lie
If you are still defending it
Then you confirming to liars - that their contempt for you was correct
Just like Jacob Rees Mogg is here
His contempt and inability to face admitting he the lies that were told
And that is good
Thank you Jacob
For showing us who you are
After all if you can lie to the Queen to unlawfully prorogue Parliament
Lying to a nation is child's play
Jacob to his constituents
"When the question-portion of the evening began a clear divide began to appear between Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg and all the other candidates. All the other candidates said the Brexit bus promising £350 million to the NHS was a disgrace"
"with Manda Rigby striking a cord with the audience when she said “anyone who voted on that basis has my absolute sympathy, because it should be the case that you should be able to believe what a politican tells you.”"
"Mr Rees-Mogg, to the disbelief of the other candidates and some in the audience, said that actually the £350m was an underestimate ... we are saving five times that with Brexit, and it is now a ‘matter of domestic choice’ how we spend that money."
Now
There is a question
Who was an MP you most admired during the referendum campaign
Well
I have mine
Sarah Woolaston MP
For her action on one small thing
Just one small thing
She was prepared to change her mind
And
She was prepared to challenge a lie
“For someone like me who has long campaigned for open and honest data in public life I could not have set foot on a battle bus that has at the heart of its campaign a figure that I know to be untrue,” said Wollaston, who is a former GP. "
Oh yes and as a consequence
Dr Wollaston was instantly subjected to aggressive attacks from Leave campaigners on social media saying she had been “bought”, or was a “plant” from the beginning of the campaign, destined to switch sides. She also received misogynistic abuse.
2. on audits
"The fact is that, contrary to the convincing assertions by some UK media, the EU accounts have been passed by the independent auditors every year since 2007 as accurate, legal, regular and reliable."
I am not going to cover the EU audit lie any more than that
3. On company movements
You spout some utter deluded lies about how the EU has encouraged other countries to "steal" British factory locations
They weren't.
Again this has been debunked and disproven by so many commentators.
Again.
It won't stop liars lying.
4. on protectionism
That old the EU is protectionist trope
"There is one country that imposes more protectionist measures than any other.
It isn't China, Mexico, or Japan. It is the US."
"Tariff rates in Eurasia are the lowest, thanks to freer cross-border trade promoted by the European Union. The dawn of the millennium brought with it a preference for non-tariff barriers, as the WTO actively discouraged the levy of tariffs. “
If you want to see a measure of economic openness
See the ICC Open Markets Index
The United Kingdom
In Position 30 for openness (which is Category 2 Above Average openness)
Above us in openness
Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, Malta, Norway, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Latvia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Bulgaria
Oh yes
And to those who peddle the EU protectionism trope
At the same time as Operation Vaken and the Chagos Islands and how did Boris put it - oh yes picanninies and water melon smiles
There's the Commonwealth trope BS
Or the lies of the CANZUK trope BS
I would talk about America
And how one man fanned the flames of birtherism and racism
Against one President B. Obama
But you know that already
You know what a racist desperate charlatan Boris was and is
6. Expertise
Now
Where to begin
Well first lets focus on a man who whilst a minister
Sought a fellowship of experts to advise him
Michael Gove
Except when he doesn't like those experts and they point out the reality of his policies in which case he has to get rid of them. See Natasha Devon whose concern for child and mental health was ignored by Michael & Dominic.
Roll onto a referendum campaign and Michael Gove decided to tackle the evidence and argument from experts
Not by playing the ball
But by playing the people/profession
“people in this country have had enough of experts”.
I guess that's why it took Michael so long into a pandemic before he got around to reading the suppressed Operation Cygnus report
Still he moved damn quickly at using his position of power to secure access to a covid test when his family was at risk
Imagine such sheer naked nepotism
Approved of and enabled by a Prime Minister
You demonise "elites"
You demonise "metropolitan" folk
You demonise "liberals"
You even demonise the "urbanites" of Bath if you are Jacob Rees Mogg
You smear an entire profession (economists)
Again - showing you can't play the ball
By the way - those economists were correct
You exploit coronavirus to hide brexit within
Imagine admitting doing that
And imagine not caring that you are open about it
7. Simplism / 8. Plan
It's quite difficult to separate 7 and 8
So I am going to combine them into one
Now once upon a time
Dominic Cummings warned of the danger of having a plan
"Creating an exit plan that makes sense and which all reasonable people could unite around seems an almost insuperable task. Eurosceptic groups have been divided for years about many of the basic policy and political questions"
And therefore it was quite surprising
When lo and behold
Before the 23rd June 2016
Who should pop up
But Messrs Gove and Johnson
To pronounce that they had a plan
14th June 2016 Daily Telegraph
"To that end, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, the two leading figures in the Leave campaign, have drawn up a blueprint for implementing a Brexit. Sensibly, it calls for flexibility and a period of reflection."
Now I have so many questions
Given Dominic's words
There must have been a lot of care, drafting and reviews went in to agreeing that plan
They must have found to borrow a word - a lot of reasonable people
It is therefore surprising
That 4 plus years on from announcing they had a plan
That not one trace of that plan has ever been published or found
It would have been the perfect document
To have given to Prime Minister May
By the leader of the Leave campaign
To make it clear this is what was expected to be delivered as the result of that referendum victory
So again
All my questions
Are all really simple ones
Where is the plan?
Who wrote it?
Who agreed it?
Now lets just accept the lie of that plan
There never was one
As opposed to well
2014
Where those campaigning for Scottish Independence produced a plan
Dominic learnt from both the AV and Indyref campaigns
He & others learnt
That if you have no concrete target to attack
It makes it much more difficult for your opponents
So in addition to being no plan
They had to make it sound easy
Hence
You had a wide spread of tropes
From we hold all the cards
The easiest deal in history
To They Need Us More Than We Need Them
To the EU will bang on our doors on 24/6/16 to gift us unicorns
To the EU will collapse soon
Each of these utter bullshit of course
But it doesn't matter
Because they all achieved their goal
After all people don't want to hear how much you have as liabilities
- oh additional simplism
Our liabilities "buy" us a deal
Yes - that danegeld as Jacob Rees Mogg called it
9. Respect
Jesus I could go into so much on this topic
Into 4 plus years of rolling on of the lies and tropes of the con of brexit
Of a never ending selection of insults flung at any critique of brexit
Instead though I want to thank those who employ such personal abuse
Thank you because it shows as Thatcher said
You cannot play the ball
So all you can do is play the person
Ignore the bullshit printed on a 50p piece
From insults aimed at our neighbours e.g. "french turds" , nazi jibes and other insults
To those aimed internally e.g. remoaners
metropolitan
liberal
elites
saboteurs
enemies of the people
10. NI Border
This one's really a short point
Vote Leave promised they had "many solutions" to the NI border
Not one
Many
Some brexiteers like to claim that the NI border or its challenges were ever discussed
They were.
Now after four years of eternal rotating lazy susan bullshit of to name a few that included:
Unspecified technology
Drones
Blimps
Blockchain
Look to the Norway/Sweden or USA/Canada or an unspecified South American border
Why there was even talk of starving the Irish from the Prittster
I wonder how unintentionally frustrated she was on that day.
Maybe one of her members of staff wrote the threat for her. Is that her latest get out clause right?
Those liars who had nothing
And knew they had nothing
Well they passed their withdrawal agreement
Knowing they never had any intention of honouring it
Now at the last
They break the law
to justify breaking law the lies employed - well as usual you give people a range of ones to employ:
signed WA at pace
necessary to stop a foreign power breaking up our country
EU aren’t acting in good faith
its only a very specific & limited way
A reminder of the words of one M. Thatcher
“Britain does not renounce Treaties.
Indeed, to do so would damage our own integrity as well as international relations.“
So you have the "Conservative & Unionist Party" pissing on the grave of Thatcher
There is no depth they will not sink to
None
Here a reminder on Margaret Thatcher and what she expects in a Prime Minister
"The Prime Minister is a man of the highest integrity and honour and should not, therefore, suffer for someone whose standards were not as high as his own.”
So in terms of how you won
I am so so sorry
I am sorry that leave campaigns felt that they had to cheat, lie, peddle racist xenophobia and so many more shameless actions to win
In a way
It is a reflection of your desperation for the win
And that you would countenance anything that aided in that pursuit
The contempt you have for decency, democracy and people who fall for your campaign is endless
So
I come back to our second central point
What did you win?
You won
Theresa May for 3 years trying to serve not the nation
But her party
All she did
She did for her career (to ensure its continuance)
And for her party (to ensure its retention of power)
She could not and did not face up to how brexit was won
She deliberately sacked whistleblowers on electoral crimes
She deliberately did not investigate Russian interference
She deliberately served only self, career and party
Those wheatfields look on in envy
The UK government
Rolling on the con and lies of brexit
With more lies and desperation
But
At her core
Theresa May faced one difficulty
She actually was not a believer
She knew what she was selling was a lie
She knew brexit was sold with lies, cheating and racism
She knew brexit was unattainable
She knew there were not any "many solutions" to the NI border
She knew it would make us worse off
Why there even was one of her MP's who accused her of being a threat to open global Britain because Theresa's faith might care about the "common good" and posed a threat to open global buccannering brexit Britain
Imagine using someone's faith as a weapon against them like that
Stand up Michael Gove and be proud of your catholic bigotry.
Perhaps Michael can explain why only the catholic faith poses a threat if it cares for the common good.
Does that mean Jacob is a threat?
We won economic damage
Yes
That damage that forecasters had warned of
Did happen
It was not worse because the Treasury and the Bank of England took steps to help mitigate it
We won economic consequences - something brexiteers have written off for years as global trends
Now something they will tell us are because of coronavirus and a global down turn
We won comfort letters having to be flung at car companies in desperation - a sign of the desperation of government
The topic of brexit weaponised by Theresa May and her party to win a general election
And once May was deposed
Boris Johnson elected leader
A man who for his entire career has been an amoral lying self serving incompetent charlatan
Boris Johnson got at the last the thing he wanted
The one thing it was all about
Prime Minister Johnson
That is all that ever mattered to him
We won Boris Johnson and him spaffing honours and nepotism/cronyism to those who aided his ascent and the ascent of brexit
We won a border in the Irish Sea
I could quote so many words of Conservative MP's on how such a thing would be incompatible with the very notion of the union
But it doesn't matter
They forsook those words
They forsook the union
All for self, career and party
We won our liabilities bill (no it didn't buy us a deal)
We won no sunlit uplands
As Sajid Javid put it the lost decade of brexit that he wrote about - although he didn't specify whether that started in 2016 or in 2020
He was so afraid and cowed of his words he cancelled his own words
Again anything to serve self and career
We won the celebration after 5 years of celebrating continuinty trade deals that make us stand still
And when it comes to negotiate new FTA's with nation's whether it be USA, India or others
We go to them enfeebled, weakened, desperate
We won a Britain so enfeebled and desperate that we have to use foreign aid as a trade tool to exploit and bribe other countries with
We won a 50 pence piece with the most hollow of slogans on it
We won Tory MPs and ministers admitting that brexit was so bad it needed to be hidden within the disaster of coronavirus to try and hide its effects
We won Tory ministers saying that the sunlit uplands might happen eventually in 30-40 years time but we won't know until then
We won a bad deal
The ONLY way the government can make that deal look good is by comparing it to NO DEAL
It is worse than what we had
A bad deal on fishing, on goods, on services, on playing fields, on citizens rights, on the union
But at the last
Boris Johnson is desperate
So desperate
He needs to sell it
So
At the last we turn to our last question
How do we move on?
The Prime Minister is lost
His cult is lost
They are a sad rabble of amoral cheating lying racist nativist incompetent self serving charlatans
Austerity, brexit and coronavirus
Their legacy to a country
No wonder they are all so afraid
So the Labour party as are other parties now faces a choice in how we vote for this trade deal with the European Union
As Margaret put it
"FINALLY, I should like to send a personal message to all Electors. No Candidate can promise a Utopia just by voting this way or that. The long training I have received has taught me to shape my own opinions judging on the evidence alone."
"I promise to consider all matters of policy in this light, and in Parliament I should vote as my conscience and not party line dictates. I should carry out my task to the utmost of my ability, allowing myself no rest until the duties which fell to my lot were complete."
Now there is much question over how Labour should vote in this bill
Vote for the deal
Vote against the deal
Abstain
All 3 of these choices are difficult choices
Because I know that the PM and his party will have been prepared for whichever of the 3 we pick to weaponise it against us for party political gain
He will have had Fact Check UK and his party ready to smear us
But they mask the most important question of all
How does the United Kingdom as a nation move on from Brexit?
All 4 home nation's are spaffed on by the Prime Minister as all he seeks is the sale of anything for his own career furtherance
As the parties across all 4 nation's make a choice on what is best for their nation's interests.
There should be one simple question:
Does this deal live up to what was promised in the referendum?
The answer to that question is no.
It does not deliver a better deal.
It does not deliver anything that will make us better off.
It does not even repay its costs of preparation, liabilities, economic mitigation and ongoing economic damage.
It does not deliver the "many solutions" to the NI border
It does not deliver on its promises for fishing, for farming for any sector.
All that matters to Boris Johnson is what he can sell it as.
Therefore the position of the Labour Party is a simple one.
We offer the Prime Minister a choice between two letters you might say
The issue now is how we as a nation move on.
The first step in moving on is to admit what was done.
So if the Prime Minister can admit how brexit was won and what was won.
The Labour Party will abstain and allow this treaty to pass this house without our opposition.
If the Prime Minister cannot admit this then the Labour party will vote against this treaty
This treaty is unconscionable against the union an affront to decency, honesty, integrity and the standing of this House.
I am not going to present a third option of the Prime Minister explaining how the bill meets the promise of brexit and persuade us to vote for the bill because he can't. He will spaff his usual lies and meaningless soundbites.
I know that the Prime Minister's focus is on his "legacy", on how he is remembered
For austerity, brexit and coronavirus - he now seeks in the remaining years of his term to carve out something anything.
His party also seek this - so that come 2024 someone else can take the reins of herd leader. Self, career and party first. Always.
To his last days Boris Johnson is as he has always been a useful totem.
Just as he used others so they use him.