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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Brexit deal: Boris Johnson signs EU-UK trade deal after MPs vote to pass agreement - as it happened

Early evening summary

  • The legislation implementing the UK-EU trade deal is in course to become law late tonight, or in the early hours of tomorrow morning, after MPs voted for it by by 521 votes to 73 - a majority of 448. The EU (future relationship) bill is still being debated by peers, but it is due to pass all stages in the Lords without amendment by around 11pm tonight. However, peers are expected to pass an amendment expressing reservations about the deal. (See 5.28pm.)
  • Three Labour MPs have resigned as junior frontbenchers after defying Keir Starmer and refusing to vote for Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. But, although Starmer infuriated many in his party by ordering his MPs to vote for a deal that they view as bad for Britain, only one MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, actually voted against. Another 36 abstained. (See 3.47pm.) Starmer was widely criticised when he ordered his party to abstain in a vote on Covid restrictions earlier this month - he was accused of being indecisive on a matter of national importance - and although his decision to back the government today angered hardline pro-Europeans and leftwingers, it was firmly in line with what the public expect. According to a YouGov poll, the public wanted MPs to back the trade deal bill by a margin of more than six to one. (See 12.22pm.)
  • Johnson has refused to accept that his deal will create new barriers to trade with the EU. In an at times bizarre interview with the BBC, he also suggested having to fill out customs forms for the first time could benefit firms exporting to the EU - because it would mean the same rules applying for exports to any part of the world. (See 6.11pm.)

That’s all from me for tonight - and for 2020.

Happy new year everyone. Thank you for your time and your interest, and your contributions, and your support. I’ll be back on Monday next week.

The sun setting behind the Houses of Parliament this afternoon.
The sun setting behind the Houses of Parliament this afternoon. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Johnson claims having to fill in customs forms for first time could be 'advantage' for exporters to EU

Boris Johnson has recorded an interview with the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, in which at one point he went full Donald Trump. Johnson refused to accept that his trade deal with the EU would create new barriers to trade with the EU - even though it will. Here are the key points.

  • Johnson refused to accept that his deal will create new barriers to trade with the EU. This was a claim he also made, falsely, in his press conference on Christmas Eve, when he said the deal would remove non-tariff barriers. Today he told the BBC the deal would allow the UK to do more business with the EU because the UK would be able to do things differently, whilst “not having any barriers to trade with the EU”. When Kuenssberg put it to him that this was just factually wrong, Johnson said there would be “changes” - but he did not concede the point. When Kuenssberg put it to him again that it was not true to say there would be no new barriers to trade, Johnson said it was wrong to think that there were not barriers to trade in the EU in relation to services. He went on:

There are already immense barriers to UK services. There is no internal market for services in the EU.

  • Johnson suggested having to fill out customs forms for the first time could benefit firms exporting to the EU - because it would mean the same rules applying for exports to any part of the world. This was what he said when Kuenssberg said he was wrong to claim there would be no new barriers to trade with the EU.

There will be changes. We’ve been very clear with people that they’ll have to get ready for 1 January, things will work differently. But from the point of view of UK exporters, for instance, they will now have the advantage that they will only have one set of forms they have to fill out for export around the whole world.

  • Johnson also claimed that this was a “cake-ist treaty” because it enabled the UK to have its cake and eat it. He went on:

People said that that was impossible. And they said that that was having your cake and eating it. If you remember what they said was you couldn’t have free trade with the EU unless you conformed with the EU’s laws. That has turned out not to be true.

This was also a claim he made in his speech to MPs. (See 9.54am.) But it’s misleading. The key remainer argument was not that tariff-free trade was impossible without complying with EU laws, but that frictionless trade (ie, trade without tariffs and non-tariff barriers) would be impossible. That has turned out to be the case.

Updated

Peers almost never hold a vote on bills at second reading, and this evening there is not expected to be a yes/no vote on the EU (future relationship) bill which would involve peers trying to block it. But there is expected to be a vote on a Labour amendment to the second reading motion expressing some reservations.

Labour sources say they expect the amendment to pass. It would not hold up or alter the legislation in any way, but, if approved, it would amount to the Lords passing the bill while holding its nose.

This is what the amendment says. As an amendment to the motion that the bill be now read a second time, at end to insert:

and this house welcomes that the agreement with the European Union has avoided the United Kingdom leaving the transition period without a deal, but regrets the many shortcomings including the bureaucratic burdens, regulatory hurdles, relative neglect of the services sector, limited provision for mutual recognition of qualifications, uncertainty on regulation of data flows, and limited concessions on integrated supply chains outside the European Union, included in that agreement; further regrets the failure to secure all the vital shared tools on security and policing required to keep people safe; notes that there are considerable details yet to be negotiated; and calls on Her Majesty’s government to work with parliament and the devolved authorities (1) to establish robust oversight procedures over the remaining areas to be agreed and the implementation of those aspects already in the agreement, and (2) to move quickly to establish the parliamentary partnership assembly jointly with the European parliament.

Lord Newby, the Lib Dem leader in the Lords, has also tabled an amendment for later that would block the bill, but if this is put to a vote, it is expected to be defeated quite easily.

Updated

Boris Johnson is about to hold a press conference.

I will be monitoring it for anything he says about Brexit, but mostly he will be talking about coronavirus, and today we are covering all the UK Covid news on our separate coronavirus live blog. It’s here.

From Jessica Taylor, the official Commons photographer

If you want to read the full division lists for the Commons votes on the EU (future relationship) bill, they are now on the parliamentary website.

Here is the list of all those voting in favour at second reading.

Here is the list of all those voting against at second reading.

And here is the list of those who did not vote.

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has put a statement on his Facebook page explaining why he did not vote for the bill implementing the UK-EU trade deal. Here’s an excerpt.

Whilst the public debate has been dominated by issues of fishing – and in the end there is a five-year extension on that matter – other matters however have received no scrutiny or debate, despite being crucial to the society we wish to be and the country we must build over the coming years.

Of particular importance from a progressive perspective, is that far from protecting workers rights, and environmental standards, they apparently are dependent on whether or not they have any effect on “trade or investment”. Indeed, Johnson confirmed this morning there would be no keeping up with any future alignment with the EU. We know what the Conservative agenda on these rights mean – they have never missed an opportunity to further exploit workers and our environment, and they have sought to create an opportunity for themselves in what they have negotiated ...

There has also been a claim that Johnson wanted to be free from the EU state aid rules, briefing that they were restrictive of government intervention to support economic development. My belief has always been that these are restrictive and would hamper a progressive Labour government trying to regenerate the most left behind parts of Britain - but this deal does not break free of state aid or public procurement restrictions, or of commitments to competition and privatisation of public services. They are baked into the deal.

Corbyn abstained in the vote, but he technically did not count as one of the Labour rebels (see 3.47pm) because he is currently sitting as an independent, having been suspended over his response to the EHRC report into Labour and antisemitism.

Updated

MSPs vote against trade deal

In Edinburgh MSPs have voted against the UK-EU trade deal. The EU (future relationship) bill is not a matter for the Scottish parliament, but they voted for a Scottish government motion saying the agreement would cause “severe damage to Scotland’s environmental, economic and social interests” and backing a memorandum saying the Scottish government is not giving it legislative consent. You can read the full text of the memorandum, including an analysis of the impact of the deal on Scotland, here.

Under the Sewel convention, Westminster is supposed to get “legislative consent” from the devolved administrations when it passes laws that intrude on devolved matters. But this is not a legally binding obligation, and the wording of the convention accepts that in some circumstances consent is not needed.

After the vote Michael Russell, the Scottish government’s constitution secretary, said:

The Scottish parliament has backed this government’s position: saying no to a hard Brexit deal that will do enormous damage to our economy, our society and to the opportunities of this and future generations.

But, as it has done so throughout the Brexit process the UK government will ignore the Scottish parliament. This means in two days’ time Scotland will be forced out of the European single market and customs union, hitting the economy and jobs at the worst possible time.

The Scottish government will now do everything we can to mitigate the damage that will be caused.

Updated

Boris Johnson signs trade and cooperation agreement with EU

Boris Johnson has signed the trade and cooperation agreement with the EU on behalf of the UK.

Boris Johnson signing the trade deal, with David Frost (left), the UK’s chief negotiator, and Sir Tim Barrow, its ambassador to the UK (right) looking on.
Boris Johnson signing the trade deal, with David Frost (left), the UK’s chief negotiator, and Sir Tim Barrow, its ambassador to the UK (right) looking on.
 Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
No 10 staff watching as Boris Johnson signs the bill.
No 10 staff watching as Boris Johnson signs the bill. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

In the House of Lords peers have now started their debate on the EU (future relationship) bill. There is a live feed at the top of the blog. Opening the debate Natalie Evans, the leader of the Lords, stressed that the bill had passed the House of Commons with a substantial majority.

Although the Lords does often amend government legislation, it always accepts the will of the elected chamber on major issues and, even though it has a much bigger anti-Brexit contingent than the Commons, it is not expected to do anything to obstruct or hold up the bill this afternoon.

The FT’s Sebastian Payne has a full list of the Labour MPs who abstained. As he points out, it’s a mix of hardcore remainers (who find it difficult to endorse any version of Brexit) and leftwingers (who are loath to vote with the Conservatives on anything).

Updated

And here is the breakdown by party of the 521 MPs who voted in favour of the bill implementing the trade and cooperation agreement.

Conservatives: 359

Labour: 162

Two Tories also rebelled in the vote by abstaining, rather than voting in favour. They were Owen Paterson and John Redwood.

Here is the breakdown, from the CommonsVotes app, by party of the 73 MPs who voted against the deal.

SNP: 44

Lib Dem: 11

DUP: 8

Plaid Cymru: 3

SDLP: 2

Independent: 2 (Jonathan Edwards, formerly Plaid Cymru, and Margaret Ferrier, formerly SNP)

Green: 1

Labour: 1

Alliance: 1

Labour says 36 of its MPs abstained, and one voted against

Labour has now firmed up its numbers. It says 36 of its MPs abstained, and only one, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, voted against.

In the debate Diane Abbott, who was shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, said she would be voting against, but she seems to have changed her mind at the last minute.

This is from Labour’s Florence Esholami explaining why she abstained in the vote, and resigned as a Labour whip.

Three Labour frontbenchers resign as they join more than 30 party MPs refusing to vote for bill

Labour sources are saying they think 34 of their MPs defied the whip by abstaining, but only three voted against. But those numbers have not been confirmed yet because the division list is not out, and proxy voting makes counting more complicated than it used to be.

The party sees this as a relatively good result. Earlier this month there were reports that up to 60 Labour MPs might rebel.

Almost all today’s rebels were engaged in abstention rebellion, which is less provocative and less damaging than voting directly against party orders.

Labour sources are also pointing out that Boris Johnson suffered a much larger rebellion in the vote on Covid restrictions earlier this month, when 53 of his MPs rebelled against him.

Three Labour MPs who abstained have resigned from the front bench: Helen Hayes (see 2.53pm), Tonia Antoniazzi (see 2.41pm) and Florence Eshalomi, a whip.

The bill now goes to the House of Lords, where it is due to pass all its stages before the end of the day - although, with 127 peers down to speak, that does not necessarily mean the end of the conventional working day. The debate might go late into the night.

The speaking list for the Lords debate is here.

Updated

The bill has now passed its third reading by 521 votes to 73 - a majority of 448. That is exactly the same result as earlier.

The Labour MP Helen Hayes says she has resigned as a shadow Cabinet Office minister because she could not vote in favour of the bill.

That was the second reading vote. But the bill has to pass its committee of the whole house stage and third reading before it can go to the Lords.

However, according to the business motion agreed this morning, there is no time left for further scrutiny. The deputy speaker, Eleanor Laing, took the chair for the committee of the whole house stage. There was no debate, but there was some laughter when she declared the committee had gone through the bill.

MPs are now voting on the third reading. There was no third reading debate, and the result of this vote should be identical, or almost identical, to the result of the second reading one. (See 2.43pm.)

MPs pass trade and cooperation agreement bill by majority of 448

The bill approving the trade and cooperation agreement with the EU has been passed at second reading by 521 votes to 73 - a majority of 448.

The Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, who is a parliamentary private secretary to the shadow DWP and Scotland teams, says she will abstain. She says she has offered her resignation as a PPS as a result (because she is defying the whip, which is ordering Labour MPs to vote in favour).

MPs are now voting on the bill. No amendments have been selected.

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, is speaking now.

He says Sir Keir Starmer’s speech was eloquent, but not sincere. It was like his attitude to Jeremy Corbyn, he says.

He says Starmer tried to keep the UK tied to EU structures. But now he is saying that he will not even mention Europe in Labour leaflets at the next election.

This is similar to the way Starmer used to support Corbyn, but now has distanced himself from him, he says.

And he accuses the SNP of backing no deal, because they are voting against the deal. But in the last parliament the SNP MP Joanna Cherry even took the government to court to try to make no deal illegal, he says.

Turning to fishing, he challenges what Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, said on this subject earlier (see 11.04am and 1.23pm) and quotes figures for how access to certain stocks of fish will increase.

He ends by saying that the divisions of the past, between remainers and leavers, should no longer apply, and that we are all Britons now working for a better future.

In the Commons the backbench speeches are over and Rachel Reeves, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, is winding up for Labour. She says Labour is voting for the bill to avoid no deal. But that does not mean it welcomes the substance of the deal, she says. She says it will create red tape costing £7bn for business.

She says Labour has tabled seven amendments to the bill showing how the party would do things differently.

You can read those amendments here.

In the Commons the SNP’s Kirsty Blackman described the deal as a “steaming mug of excrement”. She went on:

There is no way I’m choosing to drink this excrement, nor will I be complicit in forcing my constituents to do so. Scotland’s future must be in Scotland’s hands, not the prime minister’s.

The Bow Group, a Conservative party thinktank, has put out a statement highlighting 10 “points of concern” with the trade deal. They include “continuation of regulatory alignment” in practice, restrictions in the deal on fisheries and services and the arrangements separating Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

It also says the provisions for EU citizens living in the UK will effectively create 4m new British citizens. It says:

There has never been such a huge addition to our citizenry in our history. The new treaty maintains European immigration by bypassing visa restrictions for EU workers here temporarily while working for an EU based employer. This is clearly subject to abuse and can allow a continued contrived open door policy for the EU given that even for public sector tenders, EU companies can bid for contracts on a level playing field.

Benjamin Harris-Quinney, the group’s chairman, said:

It has become immediately fashionable among the Brexit movement to support this deal, but the Bow Group is never an organisation to get swept up in fashion, we prefer to look at the long term reality.

The reality is that it is a cause of great celebration that after almost five years we are finally leaving the EU, but also that on immigration, on the ability to make our own trade deals, and on sovereignty, Brexiteers are not getting what we wanted, however much we want to believe we are.

I look forward to continuing that debate over the coming years with the hope of finally achieving what we set out to do: to make Britain a truly and wholly independent nation.

The Bow Group used to be an influential body in the mainstream of Conservative party policy making. Now, though, it is much more of a fringe organisation, with little or no real backing in the parliamentary party.

In the Commons debate Owen Paterson, the Conservative Brexiter and former Northern Ireland secretary, said that he would like to be able to vote for the deal. But he said that he could not so do because of the separate arrangements for Northern Ireland. He suggested they were not compatible with the provisions of the Belfast agreement, saying the status of the region should not change without the support of people living there.

He also started his speech by saying it was his first to the Commons since his wife died in the summer. He thanks MPs for the support they had offered him, and said that he would work very hard to try to stop other families suffering what his family has suffered.

Updated

From the Labour MP Barry Gardiner

In Cardiff members of the Senedd (the Welsh parliament) have voted for a motion critical of the PM’s trade deal.

As Jess Sargeant at the Institute for Government points out, the Welsh government’s motion describes the deal as “damaging”, but concedes it is better than no deal.

Boris Johnson arriving back in Downing Street after opening the debate on the trade deal legislation this morning.
Boris Johnson arriving back in Downing Street after opening the debate on the trade deal legislation this morning. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

Back in the Commons, Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP, says she can understand the argument that people who voted down Theresa May’s Bexit deal (like herself) are partly responsible for the UK ending up with a harder Brexit. But she says that given people voted to leave following “the most cynical, toxic and mendacious political campaign ever fought in this country”, it was right to call for a second referendum.

And she says it is “ludicrous” to claim that voting against the bill today amounts to voting for no deal. The government has a majority of 80, and so the bill will pass, she says.

She says she will vote against because she is not prepared to acquiesce in something so harmful to this country.

In his speech earlier Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, claimed that Scottish fishing communities had been betrayed because they would have less access to key fishing stocks than now. (See 11.04am.)

In a Twitter thread starting here, the academic Matt Bevington explains why he thinks this claim is misleading.

The Labour MP Clive Lewis told MPs that he would not vote for the bill, my colleague Heather Stewart reports.

In 2017 Lewis resigned from the shadow cabinet so that he could vote against the bill authorising Theresa May to invoke article 50, which was the start of the formal legal process taking the UK out of the EU.

The anti-Brexit campaign Steve Bray outside parliament today.
The anti-Brexit campaign Steve Bray outside parliament today. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

Downing Street has also said that Boris Johnson will hold a press conference at No 10 at 5pm.

The House of Commons Christmas recess is being extended to 11 January, Downing Street has said. As PM Media reports, the prime minister’s spokesman said the move was in recognition of the fact that many MPs had had to work through Christmas to prepare for the recall of parliament to ratify the EU trade deal. The spokesman said that it was also in recognition of the extra work that the parliamentary staff had had to do over the holiday period to allow MPs to return.

Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, follows Damian Green and she echoes what he said about SIS II. (See 12.51pm.) She says the police will lose access to a database with the details of 38,000 wanted suspects and that the replacement will be “much slower and weaker”.

Damian Green, the Conservative former cabinet minister who heads the one nation group in parliament (which represents centrist Tories), says he will vote enthusiastically for the deal because no deal would have been “a terrible option for this country”.

But he says the amount of parliamentary scrutiny it is getting is “pretty laughable”.

Today is a triumph for the government, a triumph for the prime minister, but not a triumph for parliament as this degree of scrutiny is clearly pretty laughable.

And he highlights two reservations. He says it is “hugely regrettable” that the UK will lose access to the Schengen Information System SIS II database.

And he says he hopes that next year better terms will be negotiated for financial services.

Updated

Diane Abbott, the Labour MP and shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, says she will not be voting for the bill. But that is not because she does not accept the result of the 2016 referendum, she says. She says she has better Eurosceptic credentials than other remain supporters. She voted against the Maastricht treaty, she says.

She condemns the way the bill is being rushed through parliament. And she is particularly critical of the way the deal limits UK access to EU databases used by the police.

She says she will vote against the bill.

Updated

Back in the Commons David Davis, the Conservative former Brexit secretary, says that this treaty is not perfect, but that it is much better than what might have been achieved under the strategy adopted by Theresa May.

He says that the government will also have to devise a strategy to maximise the benefits in the future, particularly in relation to fishing.

In response to a challenge about his claim once that Brexit would deliver the “exact same benefits” as EU membership (see 9.54am), he says in future the UK could have “better than the exact same benefits” because it will have better opportunities to strike trade deals with the rest of the world.

Updated

Both the Tories and Labour have been arguing that voting against the bill today, as the SNP will do, amounts to backing no deal. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, says that is “desperate nonsense”. She is commenting here on a tweet from the Daily Record’s Andy Philip.

Mark Francois in the debate, holding a copy of the trade agreement.
Mark Francois in the debate, holding a copy of the trade agreement. Photograph: PRU/AFP/Getty Images

Back in the Commons Mark Francois, the chair of the Conservative European Research Group, says tomorrow night the UK will leave the EU “for ever”. He quotes approvingly what Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, said last week about “the war” being “over” as a result of this deal. Francois says:

What I call the battle for Brexit is now over. We won.

Francois also compares this to the “cry freedom” moment in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.

Mel Gibson once made a very entertaining film, but this is ‘cry freedom’ for real and now finally, it’s true.

Mel Gibson in Braveheart

Updated

Voters overwhelmingly want MPs to back deal, even though few regard it as good, poll suggests

According to new polling by YouGov, Britons overwhelmingly – by a margin of more than six to one – want MPs to pass the trade deal legislation. Even remain supporters and Labour supporters are far more likely to say MPs should vote in favour than vote against, the poll suggests.

Polling on trade deal vote
Polling on trade deal vote. Photograph: YouGov

But the poll also suggests that fewer than one in five people think it is a good deal. Even Conservative supporters and leave supporters are more inclined to see it as “neither good nor bad” than as a mainly positive achievement.

Updated

Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster, says that this is a bad deal for Wales and that today’s debate is a “rubber-stamping exercise that makes a mockery of sovereignty”. She says Plaid Cymru will vote against it.

Updated

Here’s a clip of Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson from the opening of the debate.

All 107 of the Conservative MPs first elected in 2019 are backing the PM’s deal, according to a letter organised by Peter Gibson, MP for Darlington and one of the 107.

Labour’s Ellie Reeves tells the Commons that it would not be credible for Labour to abstain in this vote. And she says the party could not support a no-deal Brexit. But she says she hopes that Labour will be able to build in the future on the limited provisions in the bill.

Updated

Back in the Commons debate Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says this deal represents “the biggest increase in red tape in British history”. The Conservatives can no longer claim to be the party of business, he says.

And they can no longer claim to be the party of law and order either, he says, because under this deal the UK will lose real-time immediate access to EU crime-fighting databases.

He says his party will vote against the bill. The deal will cost jobs, undermine the service economy and damage young people’s future. “It’s a bad deal, and Liberal Democrats will vote against it,” he says.

Updated

Scottish Labour MSPs have denied their decision to back a motion at Holyrood rejecting the Brexit trade deal has exposed divisions with Keir Starmer, after encountering a furious backlash from party members over their strategy.

Senior Labour MSPs were aghast after Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, issued a press release on Tuesday saying the party would vote for a Scottish National party motion which rejects the deal on Wednesday afternoon. (See 10.28am.)

That appeared to directly contradict Starmer’s instruction to Labour MPs in Westminster to back Boris Johnson’s deal, to avoid the appearance of backing a no deal instead.

During a tense Labour group meeting on Wednesday morning, MSPs launched what one described as a “recovery mission” to avert a crisis, including tabling an amendment designed to protect workers’ rights and pressing Nicola Sturgeon’s government to spend the £300m held in reserve for Brexit to mitigate its worst impacts.

Party sources said the SNP motion, tabled in Nicola Sturgeon’s name, was in fact carefully worded and pragmatic. While it refused Holyrood’s consent for the deal, its central demand was for the UK government to pause the implementation of the deal to allow the UK’s devolved parliaments to properly study it and allow further time to cope with its negative impacts.

One Labour source said the motion explicitly accepted a no-deal outcome had to be avoided; they said that echoed Starmer’s position. “By voting for this, we’re not voting for or against a deal, because it is very carefully worded. It’s about process,” the source said.

Anas Sarwar, the centrist MSP who is now Scottish Labour’s constitution spokesperson, also sought to downplay the significance of the Holyrood and Senedd votes by describing them as “symbolic”, while endorsing Starmer’s stance. He said:

The reality is that at this late stage we are faced with a binary choice between a deal or no deal, which is why our colleagues in the UK Labour party are acting in the national interest at Westminster and reject a no-deal scenario.

Unlike the SNP, we will do nothing to risk a no-deal Brexit. This is grown-up politics in contrast with the nationalists’ game-playing.

Even so, this attempt at face saving leaves Labour split: in Westminster, Starmer will reluctantly back the deal while attacking the SNP for voting against it. In the Welsh Senedd, Labour is also expected to support the “thin and disappointing deal” as, according to the first minister, Mark Drakeford, it is “a platform on which better arrangements can be negotiated in the future”.

Updated

Northern Ireland’s assembly is to hold a special session on Wednesday to debate – and heap scorn on – the Brexit deal.

Assembly members will return early to the Stormont chamber from their Christmas break to register opposition to the deal which is expected to sail through Westminster.

Any votes in Stormont on Wednesday will not be legally binding so there is a sense of dutiful theatre: the region which bedevilled the whole Brexit process marking the big day.

All parties in Northern Ireland are glad London and Brussels averted a no-deal Brexit and the imposition of tariffs but they still oppose Boris Johnson’s deal, although for different reasons.

Sinn Féin, Alliance and the SDLP consider the UK’s departure from the EU to be a mistake. The Democratic Unionist party supported Brexit but dislikes the final version because it may tangle trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

“A free trade deal is better than no deal, but for Northern Ireland this deal does not undo the detrimental aspects of the protocol,” said a DUP statement.

The DUP’s eight MPs, along with Alliance and SDLP MPs, will vote against the deal in Westminster. Sinn Féin MPs do not take their seats.

Updated

Labour’s Kevin Brennan says, in nearly 20 years as an MP, he has often voted for a particular proposition despite having reservations. But he says he does not see why Labour needs to vote for the deal today.

Even on the government’s own terms, this deal is a failure, he says. It is a thin deal and a bad deal. He says he won’t be voting for it.

Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Commons Brexit committee, tells MPs that this deal will not establish frictionless trade. And he says he was astonished to hear Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, defend the extra red tape being imposed on business earlier this week on the grounds that it would make them “match fit” for trading with other countries around the world.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, says he voted to join the EU in 1975. But ever since the Maastricht treaty, which he opposed, he thought the UK would decide to leave because European integration was going too far.

He says the deal is not perfect. But he welcomes it because it is a “huge advance” on what was in place before. With sovereignty, the UK will have the power to decide things for itself. At the end of the transition for fishing the UK will have control over its fish, he says.

Brexit was never about being anti-European. Brexit was about restoring power to the UK.

Updated

The DUP is voting against the bill. In a statement earlier this week it said that it was doing so not because it favoured no deal, but because “this deal does not undo the detrimental aspects of the protocol”.

Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman, is speaking now. He says although other parts of the UK will be free to benefit from being outside EU rules, that will not be the case in Northern Ireland, because it will remain in the single market.

There is a four-minute time limit on backbench speeches in the debate. After speeches from Sir Peter Bottomley and Dame Margaret Beckett, Sir Bill Cash, the veteran Tory Brexiter, has just praised Boris Johnson as someone who has saved his country. He compared him to Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

The call list showing which MPs are down to speak is here.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says when he saw the picture of Boris Johnson celebrating the deal with his arms aloft, he thought about the impact of Brexit on EU citizens living in Scotland.

When this bad Brexit deal was published, one of the very first public images that were released showed the prime minister raising his arms aloft in celebration.

When I saw that image, my thoughts immediately turned to the European nationals who have made their home here, because they’re certainly not celebrating.

During the four years and more of this Brexit mess, the main emotion they have felt is worry – worry about staying here, worrying about their jobs and real worry for their families.

In Scotland, these citizens are our friends, they are our family, they are our neighbours.

He says that, judging by Boris Johnson’s claims, the prime minister is still “drowning in delusion”.

It is claimed that this is the biggest free trade deal in history, he says. But the EU is the biggest free trading bloc in the world, he says.

Like Theresa May, he criticises the deal for what it fails to do for services.

But he claims the “biggest betrayal” has been been on fishing. He says Scottish fishing communities will end up with less access to fish under these arrangements. (There is an explanation for that claim here.)

Ian Blackford.
Ian Blackford. Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

Theresa May, the former prime minister, is called after Sir Keir Starmer. She says she is backing the deal, but she criticises Labour for not backing the deal she negotiated when she was in Downing Street.

She says she is “disappointed” by what the deal offers on services. She says she hopes the government will go further on financial services.

And she says the deal does not mean that the UK will be able to “excise the EU from our lives”. A whole set of committees is being set up to oversee it, she says.

One thing this treaty does not do is excise the EU from our lives because there’s a whole structure of committees set up, some of which – like the partnership council – will be able to amend this arrangement, make determinations on operation and interpretation without, as far as I can see, any formal reference to this parliament.

And she says Brexit should not mean isolationism.

It is important as we go forward that we recognise we live in an interconnected world and if the United Kingdom is going to play the role I believe it should play, in not just upholding but encouraging and promoting the rules-based international order and in ensuring we promote the interests and value and strengthen multilateral institutions like the World Trade Organization, we must never allow ourselves to think – as I fear some in this house do – that sovereignty means isolationism.

Updated

Starmer says the lack of ambition in the trade deal is striking. And he says it is not honest for the PM to pretend that the deal is what it isn’t.

There is little for services, he says.

So we’re left to wonder either the prime minister did not try to get a strong deal to protect our service economy or he tried and failed. Which is it?

Starmer says Boris Johnson is claiming that the UK has secured sovereignty, as well as no tariffs. But as soon as the UK departs from the level playing field, tariffs will kick in, he says.

Updated

Starmer says Johnson wrong to claim his deal will eliminate non-tariff barriers to trade

Starmer is now speaking about the detail of the deal. He says that at his press conference on Christmas Eve, Boris Johnson claimed that there would be no non-tariff barriers to trade under the deal. But that was not true, Starmer said.

It’s not true, and the prime minister knows what he said is not true. He simply won’t stand up and acknowledge it today and that speaks volumes about the sort of prime minister that we have. Because the truth is there’ll be an avalanche of checks, bureaucracy and red tape for British businesses.

He challenges Johnson to defend his claim. Johnson says trade will be tariff-free and quota-free (which is not the same thing).

Starmer says “making promises that he doesn’t keep” has been a hallmark of the PM.

Updated

Back in the Commons Sir Keir Starmer is now speaking. He says Labour is voting with the government today because a deal is better than no deal, not because it approves of every aspect of the deal.

There’s only one choice today, which is to vote for implementing this deal or to vote for no deal. Those that vote no, are voting for no deal.

This is the nub of it: those voting no today want yes. They want others to save them from their own vote. Voting no, wanting yes, that’s the truth of the situation and that’s why my party has taken a different path.

The SNP’s David Linden asks him why Labour is voting for the deal in London, but against it in Scotland. (See Severin Carrell’s post on this at 10.28am.)

Starmer says the votes are on different matters. (The Scottish one relates to legislative consent.)

Updated

Scottish Labour has found itself trapped in a no-win dilemma over Brexit after it decided to back a Scottish National party motion against the Brexit deal in Holyrood later today - in direct contradiction of Keir Starmer’s stance at Westminster.

To the consternation of his internal critics, Richard Leonard, the party’s Scottish leader, announced on Tuesday the party would vote with the SNP to reject the deal by arguing it would cause unjustified economic damage in Scotland.

To the glee of its opponents, this puts the Scottish party on a collision course with Starmer, who has insisted Labour has to back the deal because now it is signed, Westminster faces a binary choice of either backing it or effectively endorsing a no-deal Brexit.

Rejecting counter-arguments that Labour should abstain, Starmer told the Guardian on Tuesday: “If you vote against it, you are voting for no deal. That’s the SNP’s inexplicable position. The consequence of that, if they succeed, will be no deal.”

The implication of Starmer’s position is Scottish Labour must also be backing a no deal if it votes with the SNP in Holyrood. Ian Murray, Scottish Labour’s only MP and the shadow Scottish secretary, has repeatedly supported Starmer’s analysis.

After a tense Holyrood Labour group meeting, the party is expected to publish a revised position later today, claiming their rejection of the deal is based on the Tory government’s failure to consult the devolved nations. It will also claim they empathise with Starmer’s dilemma, arguing he has been put in an invidious position.

With Labour trailing at third in polling for May’s crucial Holyrood elections, Leonard clearly hopes voting against the deal will protect Labour against SNP attacks it backs Brexit. Given Scotland’s strongly Europhile sentiments, that attack line could harm Labour.

As things stand, the SNP’s motion at Holyrood to reject the deal will certainly win support from the Scottish Greens, so will pass narrowly without Labour’s support. The Tories will vote against the SNP, as will the Lib Dems.

Even so, Labour’s stance could have significant repercussions for the party in May: its effect is to damage Starmer at a time when Labour unity is essential, and fuel allegations Labour is in disarray. In turn, that increases the SNP’s chances of winning a majority at Holyrood, and thus of holding a second independence referendum.

Updated

Boris Johnson ended his speech with the passage claiming Brexiters never wanted a “rupture” from the EU. (See 9.54am.)

Johnson mockingly says he is now delighted that Sir Keir Starmer has found “yet another” position on Brexit.

Having plunged down every blind alley, and exhausted every possible alternative, [Starmer] has come to the right conclusion, namely to vote for this agreement.

But Johnson claims Starmer wants a mandate at the next election to “rewrite” the deal. This is almost the opposite of what Starmer actually said in his Guardian interview. Starmer told the Guardian:

Will the renegotiation of the treaty be central to the manifesto? No. If we are still arguing in 2024 about what has gone in these past four years, we’re facing the wrong way as far as I’m concerned.

Starmer did not rule out seeking some amendments to the treaty. But he stressed “there will not be an appetite for renegotiating the entire treaty”.

Updated

Back in the Commons Boris Johnson is now talking about what he sees as the security benefits of the deal. It provides certainty for the security agencies and for the police, he says.

Turning away from Brexit for a moment, it has been confirmed that Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, will make a statement after Matt Hancock’s later. He will announce whether or not the return of pupils in England to school is being further delayed.

Updated

Labour’s Tan Dhesi asks why the deal does not do anything for financial services.

Johnson claims he cannot tell from Dhesi’s intervention whether he will vote in favour of the deal or not.

Greg Clark, the Tory former business secretary, intervenes. He says his views on Brexit were different from Boris Johnson’s. But he urges the PM to ensure that, after Brexit, the UK can capitalise on its strength in science.

Johnson says those ideas will be at the heart of the government’s legislative programme.

The UK will be free of state aid rules. It will be able to decide who and when it levels up, he says.

He says the treaty will allow the UK and the EU to take measures to protect themselves from unfair competition. But it banishes concepts of “uniformity and harmonisation”, he says.

Johnson says the deal was negotiated at “astonishing speed”.

It took nearly 8 years for the Uruguay round of world trade talks to produce a deal, and five years for the EU to reach a trade agreement with Canada, and six for Japan. We have done this in less than a year, in the teeth of a pandemic, and we have pressed ahead with this task, resisting all calls for delay, precisely because creating certainty about our future provides the best chance of beating Covid and bouncing back even more strongly next year.

Johnson says the entire UK, including Northern Ireland, will benefit from the planned new investment in the fishing industry.

He says during the fisheries transition the UK will get access to an extra 130,000 tonnes of fish.

Back in the Commons Boris Johnson has just made the claim that he has achieved something his critics said was impossible. This was in the overnight briefing. See 9.54am.

In a statement following the signing of the post-Brexit trade and security deal, the European council president Charles Michel said:

The agreement that we signed today is the result of months of intense negotiations in which the European Union has displayed an unprecedented level of unity.

It is a fair and balanced agreement that fully protects the fundamental interests of the European Union and creates stability and predictability for citizens and companies.

On major issues, the European Union stands ready to work shoulder to shoulder with the United Kingdom.

This will be the case on climate change, ahead of the Cop26 in Glasgow, and on the global response to pandemics, in particular with a possible treaty on pandemics. On foreign affairs, we will seek cooperation on specific issues based on shared values and interests.

These are major issues that will have to be discussed on a regular basis, like we do with our strategic partners, and I am looking forward to such a cooperation.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, uses a point of order to object to the PM’s claim that Scottish fishermen will be able to take back control of their fish.

Johnson says that Scottish fishermen will have access to bigger catches from the start, and that after the fisheries transition the UK will have full control of its waters.

He refers to the SNP as Scottish nationalists.

Blackford objects again. He says they are the Scottish National party, not the Scottish Nationalist party.

Updated

Boris Johnson opens debate on trade and cooperation agreement

Boris Johnson is now opening the second reading debate.

He says:

We now seize this moment to forge a fantastic new relationship with our European neighbours, based on free trade and friendly cooperation.

Updated

The SNP amendment has been rejected by 362 votes to 60 - a majority of 302.

Downing Street released overnight a substantial extract from the speech that Boris Johnson will make when the second reading debate opens. It contains at least three contentious claims.

  • Johnson will claim that he has achieved something his critics said was impossible. He will say:

The central purpose of this bill is to accomplish something which the British people always knew in their hearts could be done, but which we were told was impossible - namely that we could trade and cooperate with our European neighbours on the closest terms of friendship and goodwill, whilst retaining sovereign control of our laws and our national destiny.

This is misleading. Opponents of Brexit never said that a deal of this kind was impossible. But they did say it would be impossible to leave the EU while retaining all the benefits of being in the single market. David Davis, the first Brexit secretary, once claimed the UK would be able to retain the “exact same benefits” outside the EU as it had in the single market. It couldn’t, and it hasn’t.

  • Johnson will claim that the UK and the EU have “nothing to fear” from competition with each other.

This bill embodies our vision – shared with our European neighbours – of a new relationship between Britain and the EU as sovereign equals, joined by friendship, commerce, history, interests and values, while respecting one another’s freedom of action and recognising that we have nothing to fear if we sometimes choose to do things differently and much to gain from the healthy stimulus of competition.

This is hard to square with the fact that the trade deal contains an elaborate mechanism specifically designed to protect each side from what would be deemed as unfair trade competition.

  • Johnson will claim Brexiters never wanted a “rupture” from the EU. He will say:

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.

This may be true of Johnson himself, but it is not true of other Brexiters. Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, often said he hoped Brexit would lead to the end of the EU, and during the referendum campaign Michael Gove also implied he hoped this would happen.

Updated

Valerie Vaz, the shadow leader of the Commons, says Labour is backing the business motion.

But Patrick Grady, the SNP spokesman, says he will put his amendment to a vote. Jacob Rees-Mogg is wrong to say having a division would reduce the time available for debate, Grady says. He says if the amendment is passed, more time will be available.

Rees-Mogg says this is another move from those opposed to Brexit. He says MPs have “about the right amount [of time] to ensure that the legislation is passed”.

MPs are now voting on the SNP amendment. It would allow MPs to spend seven hours debating all stages of the bill. The government motion says all stages must end by 2.30pm, which will mean a debate of about four and a half hours.

Updated

In the Commons, MPs have now passed without opposition the motion allowing MPs to participate in the debates on the bill virtually.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, is now moving the business of the house motion setting out the timetable for today. The SNP has tabled an amendment calling for a longer debate. Rees-Mogg says he hopes they won’t put it to a vote because that would take up time available for the main debate.

Updated

The Commons proceedings are starting.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, starts by thanking the Commons staff who have made today’s emergency proceedings possible. He says some Commons staff have not had a Christmas break.

Boris Johnson wanted a trade deal that would win the approval of the most hardline Tory Brexiters, and he seems to have succeeded. Yesterday the European Research Group, which represents Conservatives pushing for a hard Brexit, published a three-page analysis (pdf) of the deal from its so-called “star chamber” of legal experts. They gave it the thumbs up. In their conclusion they said:

Our overall conclusion is that the agreement preserves the UK’s sovereignty as a matter of law and fully respects the norms of international sovereign-to-sovereign treaties. The “level playing field” clauses go further than in comparable trade agreements, but their impact on the practical exercise of sovereignty is likely to be limited if addressed by a robust government. In any event they do not prevent the UK from changing its laws as it sees fit at a risk of tariff countermeasures, and if those were unacceptable the Agreement could be terminated on 12 months’ notice.

As the Spectator’s James Forsyth points out, this means that for the first time in about 30 years the Tories are not split over Europe (although arguably you could say this has been the case since Johnson purged 21 pro-European MPs from the party last autumn.)

Instead there will be much more focus today on the Labour split, with some opposition MPs defying Sir Keir Starmer’s order to vote in favour of the deal. This will attract negative headlines, but this is more of a division over tactics than a deep ideological rift (of the kind that bedevilled the Conservative party for a generation). Starmer’s critics think that it is important for Labour to show that it is opposed to the substance of the deal. Starmer himself seems to think it is more important to show that Labour accepts the result of the 2016 referendum. He told my colleague Jessica Elgot in an interview:

We’ve left the EU and the remain/leave argument is over. Amongst the reasons for voting for the deal is to allow that closure. In our general election campaign in 2024, we will be a future-looking Labour party and a future Labour government, not one that looks behind us.

Jessica’s full report is here.

Updated

EU commission and council presidents sign UK-EU trade deal

Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, and Charles Michel, the president of the European council, have signed the trade and cooperation agreement in Brussels on behalf of the EU. The text will then be flown to London for Boris Johnson to sign later today.

Updated

MPs and peers to rush through trade deal bill in one day as lack of debating time branded 'a farce'

Good morning. After spending roughly four and a half years arguing about what Britain’s relationship with the European Union should be like following the vote to leave in June 2016, parliamentarians will rush the legislation implementing the trade deal agreed last week through the Commons and the Lords in just one day. This is because the European Union (future relationship) bill needs to become law before the post-Brexit transition ends tomorrow night.

But allowing such little time for parliamentary scrutiny of such an important law has been widely criticised. The trade and cooperation agreement with the EU (pdf) runs to more than 1,200 pages. The bill (pdf) runs to 80 pages. Yet, in effect, it is just going to be rubber-stamped.

In a report, the Commons Brexit committee has described this timetable as “unavoidable but concerning”. The Lords constitution committee has said that this is hardly what people were promised in the referendum. In its report (pdf) it says:

A prominent argument for the UK leaving the European Union was to “take back control” of our laws – for laws to be determined by the UK parliament rather than the EU’s law-making bodies ...

It is regrettable that this bill, which determines how the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be implemented in UK law, was published less than 24 hours before parliamentary scrutiny was due to begin. This does not allow parliament much in the way of ‘control’. At the very least, it leaves open the question as to where, or to whom, the control taken back rests.

The Hansard Society, the leading thinktank covering parliamentary procedure, is even blunter. It has published a blog by its senior researcher, Brigid Fowler, describing the process as “a farce”.

Boris Johnson will be opening the Commons debate and in his speech, according to extracts released overnight by No 10, he will claim that the deal will mark “a resolution of the old and vexed question of Britain’s political relations with Europe, which bedevilled our post-war history”. Our preview story is here.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: MPs begin the one-day scrutiny of the European Union (future relationship) bill. They will start with a motion allowing MPs to take part in the debate virtually, and then a business motion setting a timetable, before Boris Johnson opens the second reading debate. The second reading, and all the remaining stages, should conclude by 2.30pm.

10.30am: Members of the Senedd (the Welsh parliament) debate a critical Welsh government motion relating to the European Union (future relationship) bill.

12pm: Members of the Northern Ireland assembly debate a neutral motion relating to the European Union (future relationship) bill.

1.30pm: MSPs debate a critical Scottish government motion relating to the European Union (future relationship) bill.

After 2.30pm: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, makes a statement to MPs about coronavirus. That will be followed by a debate on the latest coronavirus restrictions.

After 2.30pm: Peers debate the European Union (future relationship) bill. More than 140 peers are on the list to speak, and it is expected that they won’t finish debating the bill until around midnight. After it has cleared both houses, royal assent is due to be granted very soon afterwards.

I will be mostly focusing on Brexit this morning. We’ll be covering coronavirus news on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Updated

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