Originally Posted by
Bread
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From Brendan Clark-Smith MP and member of the ERG.
🇬🇧🇪🇺 BREXIT FAQs - I’ve received a number of emails about the vote on Wednesday and wanted to make my position clear on some of the main questions asked.
Q. Will you ask to extend the transition period?
A. No
Q. Any deal that we reach is not as good as the deal we had as EU members. Will you support calls to rejoin the EU?
A. No. And no, being a member wasn’t a good deal.
Q. Will you help stop Brexit?
A. Brexit has already happened. We are now in the transition period and preparing for our future relationship.
Q. This is not what we voted for is it?
A. It’s what 17,410,742 people voted for. And then we subsequently had two General Elections and a European Election where people were pretty clear what they wanted. People certainly didn’t vote to have endless referenda until one side got the result they wanted - which they still couldn’t get.
Q. I voted for no deal.
A. People voted to Leave or Remain. No deal is also a starting point, not a destination. So long as they are good deals, trade deals are a positive thing and something we would be working on anyway if we had left with no deal. The issue with previous deals was that they did not respect our sovereignty, which is what Brexit is all about. So far we have successfully negotiated trade deals all over the world, not just with the EU.
Q. The ECJ will still control us.
A. Which page of the agreement is that on?
Q. I don’t know. Do you?
A. It’s not on any page because they won’t be controlling anything. We will also have an independent dispute resolution method.
Q. Does this sell out our fishermen?
A. No, in fact it gives us more stocks and will eventually (after 5 years) be 100% unless we reach a future agreement. We also don’t have the capacity to fish all the stocks we currently have. This gives us time to develop the industry and prepare in the meantime.
Q. Have you read the whole document?
A. Yes, although I now await legal guidance on technical issues. We appear to have a great deal, but we want to make 100% sure with all the fine details - this is what I’m sure everybody would expect their representatives to do.
Q. You’re a member of the ERG. Doesn’t that mean you want no deal?
A. No, we would like to see a sensible deal that respects our sovereignty and doesn’t cross any ‘red lines’, for example our laws, our courts, our waters our immigration system etc. That’s the whole point of Brexit and we want to make sure it is done properly without any hidden loopholes, which is why we wanted to scrutinise the document first.
Q. Do you think this is a good deal?
A. Yes, I think it is a fair deal and achieves what we set out to. It’s not perfect, but in a negotiation you are never going to get 100% of what you want. Even Nigel Farage agrees.
Q. Will you abstain on the vote?
A. No, because abstaining is a cop-out. We have been sent to Westminster to make decisions, not to sit on the fence.
Q. Will you vote against the deal to stop Brexit like the Liberal Democrats and the SNP?
A. Voting against the deal will not stop Brexit - in fact it will mean we end up with ‘no deal’. I therefore don’t understand their logic.
Q. Do you agree with Labour that this is a bad deal and they could negotiate a better one?
A. What parts of the deal don’t they like? What would they do differently? So far they have no answers to these questions.
In short, the vote on Wednesday will allow us to turn the page and move on. What we see now are very much the last desperate attempts of those who wish to ignore the result of the referendum.
It is too late, Brexit has already been achieved. A deal also effectively puts an end to attempts to rejoin the European Union. Now is the time to be positive about Brexit and to make a success of if. This is something we can all benefit from.