Boris Johnson: UK to begin ‘new chapter in our national story’ on Friday
Boris Johnson will say tomorrow that the UK will “open a new chapter in our national story” before MPs vote on his post-Brexit trade deal.
Johnson is expected to tell MPs that the trade deal shows how the UK can be “at once European and sovereign” and that “we have nothing to fear if we sometimes choose to do things differently and much to gain from the healthy stimulus of competition.”
Legislation to enshrine the post-Brexit trade deal into law will come before the House of Commons at 9.30am tomorrow, with a vote expected around 2.30pm.
The bill will then be brought to the House of Lords shortly after, with Downing Street expecting it to get Royal Assent late on Wednesday night.
The legislation is set to easily pass through the Commons, with Labour and hardline Tory Brexiteers both expected to vote for the deal.
The UK will then leave the EU’s single market and customs union on 1 January.
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Boris Johnson is expected to say tomorrow: “Those of us who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU never sought a rupture with our closest neighbours.
“We would never wish to rupture ourselves from fellow democracies beneath whose soil lie British war graves in tranquil cemeteries, often tended by local schoolchildren, testament to our shared struggle for freedom and everything we cherish in common.
“Now, with this bill, we shall be a friendly neighbour – the best friend and ally the EU could have – working hand-in-glove whenever our values and interests coincide while fulfilling the sovereign wish of the British people to live under their own laws, made by their own elected parliament.”
The deal was unanimously ratified by the EU’s 27 ambassadors, which will allow it to come into effect on 1 January once it passes through the UK parliament.
MEPs have begun to scrutinise the deal, but time ran out for them to vote on the deal before the end of the post-Brexit transition period on 31 December.