Here we go. The final Brexit debate begins. The final splash of petrol on the dumpster fire before the match is lit at 11pm tomorrow night.

Boris Johnson deliberately mocks the SNP by calling them the Scottish Nationalist Party, despite being admonished by the Speaker. There speaks a man who doesn't give an itty bitty toss.
Boris Johnson: "Just as we've avoided trade barriers"

What? Ah, it's because he carefully defined them as "tariffs and quotas" just before lying about them.

There will be massive, massive non-tariff barries.
He's dodging the question about fishing and Northern Ireland, wriggling like one of those eels the EU won't be buying any more.
Boris Johnson is bigging up the speed with which the UK managed to reach a trade deal.

But a trade deal that favours the interests of your counterpart while securing almost none of your own *should* be a quick process. Biting your hand off takes no time at all!
Boris Johnson: "The people of Scotland took a once in a generation sovereign decision to remain in the UK."

He's figured out the best way to eat up time is to keep needling the SNP.
This whole thing is vomit-inducing, like listening to a toddler telling his parents how he can run away forever.
Boris Johnson dismissed a completely valid question from Labour about services by mocking the MP, asking whether he will be joining Starmer in supporting the deal.

The Tories will hang Starmer's abject capitulation around Labour's collective necks forever.
Just like the last 4.5 years of the Brexit horror show, about half of Boris Johnson's comments have been about fishing.
Boris Johnson: "levelling up across the UK" - one "up" too many.
Now Boris Johnson is mocking the SNP again.
BJ: "In 5 and a half years time, we will be able to fish every single fish in our waters, if we so wish"

That sounds vastly too simplistic.
Summary of Boris Johnson's speech: lie, lie, exaggeration, SNP smell, lie, lie, deflection, SNP really stink, lie.
Another Labour question torpedoed by going back to the fact they're voting for the deal.
Boris Johnson: "Leave old, tired, super-masticated arguments behind"
Boris Johnson: "Now with this bill, we are going to become a friendly neighbour"

Thank the heavens, he's finished.
Starmer next.

"Do we implement the treaty with the EU, or do we not? If we don't, the outcome is clear: we leave the transition period without protection"

He is doubling down on BJ's message that a vote against the deal is a vote for no-deal.
KS "I want the UK to be an outward-looking, optimistic country".

So let's implement an insular, pessimistic deal.
KS is reminded of Labour's 6 tests.

He stammers in avoiding the question completely, stating that voting against is a vote for no-deal.
KS: "Those voting 'no' today want 'yes'. They are counting on others to rescue them."
This is an appalling performance by him. The clinical KS of most PMQs is hiding in a broom cupboard somewhere.
This is now the fifth time that KS has deflected people intervening on him by saying a vote against the deal is a vote for no-deal.

"We fought together for months and years against no-deal. And now others in this chamber will vote for no-deal"
Boris Johnson is challenged by KS to take back his comment about there being "no non-tariff barriers".

BJ stands up and says "there will be no tariffs and quotas". Then he mocks KS and sits back down, chortling.
KS is trying again on the "no non-tariff barriers". None of this is cutting through. He just looks too haunted, too rattled.

Boris Johnson by contrast looks like someone already sitting by the pool sipping pina coladas.
KS talks about the security of the UK, pointing out the UK loses access to multiple real-time EU databases, including one accessed 600,000,000 times by UK police in 2019.
KS: "The PM is pretending he has sovereignty AND zero tariffs and quotas. He doesn't. As soon as he exercises that sovereignty, the tariffs go on."
This was always going to be a hideous debate. But it's underwhelming even my zero expectations.
KS: "We now have an opportunity to forge a new future. One outside the EU. But working closely with our great partners, friends and allies. We will always be European."
Theresa May stands up to speak, and Sky News cuts away. BBC News already gave up. Coverage continues on BBC Parliament and online.

(Yes, it's a busy news day. But this is THE last Brexit debate ever.)
Ian Blackford now.

This will be 🔥
Good on him to bring up EU citizens here first. "Scotland is your home. You're welcome."
IB: "Scotland was European before it was British." Reminds the HOC of hundreds of years of interaction and integration with Europe.
IB: "Brexit means broken promises. It means an isolated Britain in the middle of a global pandemic."
IB: "The decision for Scotland is simple: which union do we wish to be a part of in the future."

"Now that the deal is in front of us, Brexit fictions are replaced by Brexit facts."
It's genuinely sad that only the SNP are standing up to say all the things that have to be said about the Brexit deal. KS tried in a half-hearted waffly way, but he was so skittish it took any edge off his words.
IB: "This deal means more delays, paperwork and checks"

Yes. £7.5 billion a year worth, according to HMRC's estimate.
IB: "We know this deal means a drop in access to fish stocks [for Scotland]"

Yep. All fishermen have been shafted, but Scottish fishermen most of all.
IB: "Labour's Brexit tests have disappeared as quickly as Tory promises."
Can't watch the Brexit debate any more. Just too soul-sapping. Good luck to anyone still enduring it.

More from Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡

Handy guide for Dominic Raab and other Brexiteers, and for anyone keen to replace our EU trade with trade with the rest of the world on WTO terms...


You can't magic away the vast distances involved. Clue: we fly in only 1/192th of our trade compared to the amount that arrives via sea


But even if you invented a teleporter tomorrow, WTO terms are so bad, so stacked against us, that a no-deal Brexit will be a total economic disaster


And while the Brexiteers fantasise, real jobs are being lost, investments are drying up, companies are moving assets to the EU27 or redomiciling. All already happened and happening right now, not in some mythical


Of course, there are many, many myths that Brexiteers perpetuate that are total fiction. You've seen a couple of them already. The thread below busts a whole lot

More from Brexit

A not-so-little thread on how post-Brexit work permit regulations will apply in Scottish football and why it’s, broadly, not a good thing...

1) Work permit calculations are based on the points formula from this site -
https://t.co/sjqx8Df7Zg

As things stand, while this article deals with England, the system applies to Scotland also.

The goal is 15 points and the article shows various ways to get there. Essentially, play regularly internationally or in a top 5 league and you’re in. But read the article because it’s a bit trickier than that.

2) There are elements of this I’d dispute. For example, here’s the banding of leagues and, lower down, it’s an absolute mess - Denmark (ranked 14 in coefficient table) and Serbia (16) banded lower than Croatia (20), Greece (18) and Czechs (19)? It’s wholly random.


I get the point that leagues should be banded, but there doesn’t seem to have been loads of sense applied to how these things are actually banded, rather they’ve just shoved a bunch of leagues together and hoped for the best.

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