Bercow blocked a second attempt at a meaningful vote on the Withdrawal Agreement amid slightly ill-tempered scenes inside the chamber yesterday afternoon, with Tory MPs particularly upset. It should make the passage of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill through parliament unscathed far more difficult but I assume it will become law - eventually. The Bill itself was published late last night, all 115 pages of legalistic gobbledygook. The governmemt's next problem is the timetable.
Getting it through by Friday as Johnson wishes looks impossible.
The Commons is being given three days to debate, scrutinise and amend a long and hugely complex bill that will impact our lives for years. They probably debated the Dangerous Dogs Act for longer. I cannot see MPs accepting the programme motion setting out the timetable later today. MPs on both sides will want to go through it in detail and will vote to extend the programme, finally scuppering any slim chance Johnson had of leaving on 31st October.
If you want an idea how complex and difficult it is to read and understand have a look at page 2 of the Bill itself which I reproduce below:
This goes on for 110 pages in more or less the same style. I am afraid I cannot comment on it and can only assume it is the minimum required to do the job. MPs are however expected to table a lot of amendments including a customs union, a second referendum and some mechanism to prevent us leaving without a trade deal on December 31st next year. These are the main ones (although nobody seems to think the first two will pass anyway) but I would think there will be plenty of others.
I also learned the House of Lords does not have programme motions and are likely to go through it with a fine toothed comb which will push the exit day back much further. The bill will probably become law before Christmas but October 31st is just not possible.
I want to turn to a couple of other points concerning Northern Ireland. Stephen Barclay appeared before the Lords EU Scrutiny Committee yesterday and appeared not to understand the agreement he had just negotiated. Someone tweeted this:
Barclay had to correct an earlier answer he had given on what some in NI might think a fundamental issue. They will have to complete customs declarations on shipments to the GB mainland, quite a burden on businesses in the province. He was winging it when he gave the first incorrect answer that trade west to east would be "frictionless". What confidence does this give anyone?Initially Barclay said he didn't think customs declarations would be required but that he would write to the committee clarifying.— Eleni Courea (@EleniCourea) October 21, 2019
A few minutes later he read out a correction saying: "The exit summary declarations will be required in terms of NI to GB." https://t.co/y4BYWdMpGy
An Impact Assessment has also now been published - another 69 pages - but this doesn't include an economic assessment although on page 48 one can see that 56% of NI trade in goods is with GB and only 16% with Ireland. Companies in NI will be knee deep in paperwork on 56% of their external trade in order to ensure that 16% continues to be frictionless. Crazy or what? Unionists will be concerned that over time the two figures will be transposed.
And on that topic, there is growing anger in Northern Ireland among the Unionist community following a meeting in East Belfast yesterday. The report says:
"Speaking to media after the meeting concluded, [spokesman] Mr Bryson said: 'The unionist and loyalist community have had enough of this one-sided peace process, we’re not going to tolerate an economic united Ireland and that was the feeling in the room.
'The anger is immense across unionism and loyalism, I can’t think of a section of unionism or loyalism who was not represented here tonight in east Belfast so when you ask what was the outcome, no one group was behind this, it’s not one group to come up with an outcome, this was the people speaking, this was the unionist and loyalist people speaking'.
'They can take that message back to Boris Johnson. For three years Leo Varadkar and the Irish Government went to the European Parliament and everywhere else and said we can’t have a border on the island of Ireland because it’s a threat to peace, but it’s OK we’ll just shaft the loyalists and put a border in the Irish sea.
'I think they are entering very dangerous territory at this point in time'."
If Brexit kicks off the troubles again we will all live to regret it.
