Theresa May's deal branded 'unworkable' by senior Tory Eurosceptic as PM faces open dissent in parliament
The prime minister faces questions in the Commons about the political declaration with the EU
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Your support makes all the difference.Theresa May has defended her blueprint for post-Brexit relations with the EU as senior Tories lined up to rubbish her "unworkable" agreement with Brussels.
The prime minister told MPs that a good Brexit deal was "within our grasp" and urged MPs to get behind her over the next 72 hours, when she will return to the Belgian capital for a summit where EU leaders will decide whether to rubberstamp the deal.
Conservative Eurosceptics expressed their dissent during a tense Commons statement, when ex-foreign secretary Boris Johnson described it as "complete nonsense" and Iain Duncan-Smith, former Tory leader, said it was not "at all workable" in its current form.
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson said: "We should junk forthwith the backstop, upon which the future economic partnership - according to this political declaration - is to be based, and which makes a complete nonsense of Brexit."
Ms May said her deal delivers what Mr Johnson wants, telling him: "The future relationship we have set out in the political declaration ends free movement, ends sending vast sums of money to the European Union every year and ends the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the United Kingdom, and it enables us to hold an independent trade policy and to negotiate trade deals around the whole of the world."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also dismissed the political agreement as "26 pages of waffle," which heralds the "blindfold Brexit we all feared".
May claims the deal DOES meet Labour's six tests needed secure its support, just after Jeremy Corbyn had said it didn't.
She says it will:
- result in a "strong and collaborative" relationship with the EU
- ensure the "fair management of migration"
- "defend rights and protections"
- "protect national security"
- be "good for every part of the UK"
That's five... The sixth test was that it must secure the "exact same benefits" as EU membership. May doesn't mention that...
The SNP's Ian Blackford lays into May over fisheries.
He says the UK must be able to independently negotiate access to its waters after Brexit, meaning the issue "cannot be included in the future partnership".
He claims "Scotland's fishing community is once again being used as a bargaining chip by the Tory government in Brussels".
"Scotland's fishing rights have been thrown overboard as if they were discarded fish", he adds.
May once again insists the issue of fishing access will not be traded for access in other areas.
Brexiteer Owen Paterson, who May thanked earlier for his work on how technology could be used to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, voices fears that negotiations will break down and the backstop will become a reality.
This would mean "the horror of being in the customs union, the horror of Northern Ireland being in a different regime", he says.
The former cabinet minister suggests May should withdraw the backstop from the withdrawal agreement and replace it with a legally-binding section about pursuing technological solutions to the Northern Ireland border issue.
May says it is the "firm determination" of the UK and EU that the future relationship will be agreed by 1 January 2021, avoiding the need for the backstop.
She says the backstop is "not automatic - there are alternatives to the backstop and the United Kingdom can choose those alternatives".
Dominic Raab, who resigned as Brexit secretary last week, says the backstop "ties the UK to the customs union and single market rules with no voice and a EU veto over our exit".
He says the British public voted to take back control but Ms May's proposed deal gives even more of it away.
May once again insists the backstop is not automatic and that there are alternative options.
The DUP's Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says the backstop is unacceptable and demands it is ditched if his party is to continue supporting the Conservatives in Parliament.
Boris Johnson says nothing in the political declaration changes the contents of the legally binding withdrawal agreement. He calls on Theresa May to "junk forthwith the backstop" which he says "makes a complete nonsense of Brexit".
Former education secretary Justine Greening asks May if she agrees that, if the deal is voted down and the Commons also votes against a no-deal Brexit, "the only right option then is to go back to the people and allow them to have a final say".
May repeats her usual line about the public having voted to Leave and it being the job of politicians to deliver that.
Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, says the backstop is "a constitutional anomaly of the first order" because "it makes the EU the guarantor of a bilateral treaty between ourselves and Ireland on which the people have never been consulted".
He too calls for a fresh referendum. May, for the millionth time, says the people have already voted.
Almost an hour into Theresa May's statement and just three MPs - Damian Green, Sir Patrick McLoughlin and Sir Peter Bottomley - have made supportive speeches...
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