THERESA May will visit Scotland this week to sell her Brexit deal, insisting it will "strengthen the Union" and "delivers for every corner of the UK" with more powers flowing to Holyrood.
The start of her grand Brexit tour in Wales and Northern Ireland today comes as she confirmed the MPs will have their meaningful vote on Tuesday December 11.
While the Prime Minister has expressed full confidence she can get her deal through the Commons, in the chamber yesterday she suffered another torrid reception with Tory MP after Tory MP standing up to urge her to abandon a Brexit deal they regard as a “surrender” to Brussels.
And No 10 issued a non-committal response when it faced a barrage of reporters’ questions about a possible head-to-head TV debate with Jeremy Corbyn on the Brexit deal, which Nicola Sturgeon has already made clear she would want to be involved in.
As she prepared to kick off her big sell, Mrs May said: “Having been told by the EU that we would need to split the UK in two, we are leaving as one United Kingdom. My deal delivers for every corner of the UK and I will work hard to strengthen the bonds that unite us as we look ahead to our future outside of the EU.”
The PM insisted that throughout the negotiations with Brussels she had fought to ensure powers returning from the EU would be “restored to the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly”; the First Minister and her colleagues branded the UK Government’s withdrawal plans a “power-grab”.
In her Commons statement on Sunday’s special European Council, which sealed the Brexit deal with the EU27, the PM insisted it was the “right deal for Britain because it delivers on the democratic decision of the British people,” taking back control of the UK’s laws, borders and money.
On the vexed issue of the Irish border, she was blunt, saying: “There is no deal that comes without a backstop and without a backstop there is no deal.”
On another contentious issue, fishing rights, Mrs May sought to give a strong reassurance that following the end of the transition period in December 2020 Britain would “take back full sovereign control over our waters”.
And in a thinly-veiled attack on France’s Emmanuel Macron – who has warned he will use the trade talks as a “lever” to secure EU fishing rights in UK waters – the PM told MPs there would be no trade-off, saying: “It is no surprise some are already trying to lay down markers again for the future relationship but they should be getting used to the answer by now: it is not going to happen.”
However, Ian Blackford for the SNP accused the Tory Government of perpertrating "another sell-out of the Scottish industry" and an attempt to “dupe” the nation’s fishing communities.
Mr Corbyn claimed the PM’s “botched" deal left Britain with the "worst of all worlds".
“The Prime Minister says if we reject this deal it will take us back to square one. The truth is under this Government we've never got beyond square one," declared the Labour leader.
He warned her not to “plough on” with her deal given its lack of support; it is estimated as many as 90 Tory MPs have publicly come out against it.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon to issue Brexit analysis that could determine Indyref2 date
Such antipathy was displayed in the chamber
As a string of Conservative MPs stood up to argue against the PM’s plan, including former ministers, Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Fallon, their mood was summed up by another, Mark Francois.
Describing it as a “surrender,” the Essex MP said: “The Prime Minister and the whole House knows the mathematics; this will never get through, and even if it did, which it won't, the DUP - on whom we rely for a majority - have said they would then review the confidence and supply agreement, so it's as dead as a dodo.
"Prime Minister, I plead with you, the House of Commons has never, ever surrendered to anybody and it won't start now."
But Mrs May insisted the UK had “not surrendered”.
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