Extract from Commons
debate on the EU Withdrawal Agreement
(Glasgow East)
(SNP):...The Government will try to ramp up the rhetoric
around EU migrants, but the reality is that in order to get some
of their trade deals through, they will have to bend the visa
rules for India and elsewhere, so what they take with one hand
they will give with the other anyway...
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Extracts from Lords
debate on the EU Withdrawal Agreement
(LD):...Margaret Thatcher also cared deeply about
Britain’s place in the world. She understood that close relations
with France and Germany, as well as with the USA, are central to
Britain’s international standing. Those who claim to be her
successors today interpret “global Britain” as a country that
turns its back on continental Europe and pursues independent
partnerships with China, India, the Middle Eastern monarchies
and, of course, the Anglo-Saxon world, rather than grounding our
global role in our European context...
(CB):...All this
talk from Brexiteers, and from the Leader of the House today,
about Brexit allowing us to forge a new path around the world and
the Brexiteer mantra of “global Britain”—what a lot of nonsense!
We have already been global Britain. We are one
of the most global economies in the world. Almost 50% of our
trade is with the EU—45% of our exports and 55% of our imports.
On top of that, through the FTAs with 50 countries, we have 17%
of our exports through the EU. Two-thirds of our trade is with
and through the EU. Will we go global by going after the other
one-third that includes America, China and the whole of the
Commonwealth, including India, which makes up just 9% of our
trade? India has only nine free trade
deals with any countries in the world, and not one with a western
country. For countries such as India an EU-India free
trade agreement is far more important than a UK-India one. We are talking about 500
million people and 28 countries versus one country and 66 million
people. The British public have been sold a pup...
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