During the run-up to the EU referendum, which the Westminster Village believed Remain would win, Boris Johnson was confronted with a choice. It is said that his safest option was to stick with the winning side. This is wrong. Johnson will have known what now is...
David Davis: Parliament needs more time to scrutinise this Agreement than the single day it has been given
David Davis is a former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, and is MP for Haltemprice and Howden. The deal Boris Johnson brought back from Brussels last week looks pretty good on the face of it. It seems to achieve the aim of regaining control of our...
Simon Richards: Almost 15 years ago, I helped to set up Better Off Out. This deal isn’t perfect – but it delivers what we campaigned for.
Simon Richards was CEO of The Freedom Association until June 2020, and a co-founder of the Better Off Out campaign in 2006. He is now working on plans to help promote the record and reputation of Margaret Thatcher. Three o’clock in the afternoon still has a resonance...
Tony Jefferson: Rebellion in the shires over the economic damage of continued lockdowns
Cllr Tony Jefferson is the Leader of Stratford-on-Avon District Council Stratford-on-Avon is a rural district and, by area, it is 48 per cent of Warwickshire. Rural areas have, unsurprisingly, a lower prevalence of Covid-19 than urban areas. We have consistently had...
Brady is our Panel’s backbencher of the year
Graham Brady has established himself this year, by projecting a dissenting position from the Government on Covid strategy, almost as a kind of leader of the internal opposition – an usual position for the Chairman of the 1922 Executive Committee to find himself...
Newslinks for Sunday 27th December 2020
ERG set to endorse Johnson’s Brexit deal, but not its truncated Parliamentary scrutiny “MPs will vote on the deal on Wednesday. But members of the European Research Group of Brexiteers demanded that a binding vote be delayed for three weeks to allow full...
Our survey. Tory activists give Johnson’s Brexit Trade Deal an early thumbs-up.
A third of our panel of Conservative Party members want to take their time before forming a view. But even if one adds to them the paltry six per cent who think early signs are that the agreement is a win for the EU, they are outnumbered by 60 per cent of respondents,...
Andrew Green: What’s the point of taking back control of immigration if we don’t reduce it?
Lord Green is President of MigrationWatch UK and a cross-bench peer. The Trade Agreement announced on Christmas Eve has at last given us the very welcome opportunity to take back control of our laws, our trade, and our future. The government is to be warmly...
Link to the full text of the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Link to full text. Link to summary explainer, section by section. Link to summary explainer, part by part. Link to declarations. Link to nuclear cooperation agreement. Link to security procedures for exchanging and protecting classified information.
WATCH: “I have a small present. Glad tidings of great joy! Because this is a deal.” Johnson’s Christmas message.
I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. pic.twitter.com/DofRkb4Ivc — Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 24, 2020
