DHO

Al Pinkerton, "A bill to enter negotiations with the European Union to agree a customs union between the UK and the EU" "Businesses know it. The public feel it. It's time this house admits it" "Brexit has been an abject economic failure" "It's choked business investment, shattered economic resilience, strangled trade, shrunk the economy, and left every single one of us poorer" "The economic benefits of Brexit were only ever an illusory mirage" "The kind of shimmering promise you see in the desert in the midday heat" "The kind of shimmering promise that lures you towards it, only to find it always, agonisingly, out of reach. A promise that dissipates all together as the cool of the evening returns" "Well that chill has decsended" "Now we can see clearly that the promises of 2016 and the oven ready deal of 2021 were nothing more than the luke warm figments of political opportunists" "Who sought, and in some cases still seek, advantage in populism, in fragmentation, and in fear" "Far from taking back control. Today our country feels more precarious than ever" "We lurch from crisis to crisis, uncertain of who we are, what we stand for, and whether our children will be better off tomorrow, than those who came before" "Far from becoming a buccaneering global Britain, the UK today is more weaker and more isolated than any point in our recent history" "Far from lowering food and living costs, or slashing regulation, British businesses are now burried under 2 billion bits of red tape that stretch 15x around the circumference of the earth" "All while the cost of living spirals even higher" "Far from securing the transformative trading relationships we were promised, the government have only delivered Australia and New Zealand, worth a combined 0.1% to UK GDP and exposing British farmers to toucher competition and diluted protection" "The India deal would add just 0.13%" "And the much heralded US agreement has shrunk from growth opportunity into damage limitation following Trumps tariffs" "Meanwhile we've erected new barriers with our largest market, the European Union" "Which continues to represent half our global trade" "The result? Tiny wins at the margins, and a massive permanent hit at the core" "That is no global Britain" "Nor was it ever going to be" "It's economics by consolation prize, and the country is paying the price" "Just last month the National Bureau of Economic Research, published a decade long analysis, concluding that Brexit has reduced UK GDP by 6-8%" "The House of Commons library shows that Brexit is now costing the treasury £90 billion every single year in lost tax receipts" "Money that could be supporting our NHS, our defence spending an our public services" "In practical terms, the average Briton today is between £2,700 and £3,700 worse off, that if we remained in the EU" "That is the reality of the Conservative bothced Brexit deal" "It was the most dishonest campaign in modern British political history promised that Brexit would save £350 million a week, instead, Brexit is costing this country £250 million every single day" "That is why we have the highest tax burden in 70 years" "That is why families families face sky high bills" "That is why we remain trapped in a cost of living crisis"

In case you missed it, 100 voted for the bill for a Customs Union with the EU, and 100 voted against Deputy Speaker Caroline Nokes cast the vote aye, to allow further debate, "Who will prepare the bill?" Al Pinketron, "Ed Davey, Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Calum Miller, and myself" "The UK EU Customs Union Duty To Negotiate Bill" Caroline Nokes, "Second reading, Friday 16th of January 2026"