Brexit: Boris Johnson will feel the heat as reality of life outside EU becomes clear – Ian Murray

Tomorrow will not go down as the proudest day in Britain’s history as it formally leaves the European Union. I, and many colleagues from all parties, tried our best to prevent it but the General Election on 12 December gave the Prime Minister what he wanted.

We should never have had an election prior to Brexit being sorted. The plan concocted by the Liberal Democrats and SNP to have a Christmas election backfired spectacularly.

There will be some that will celebrate on Friday evening as the clock ticks down to 23:00 but I will certainly not. I won’t mark or mourn it in any way. I have yet to hear any examples of how our lives will be better as a result of Brexit.

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What is clear is that Boris Johnson is now fully responsible for all the promises he and his allies have given to the public over the last three-and-a-half years. He can no longer escape the consequences of Brexit and the impact they will have on the country.

The next few months will be critical. There will be just a few weeks to agree a negotiating mandate with the EU and just a few more weeks before formal talks on the future relationship between the UK and the EU commence.

No-deal firmly back on table

By June there will be an EU-UK summit to assess progress of the talks. This is where any extension would be agreed if there was no sign of a conclusion by 31 December 2020 at the end of the legal transition period.

This seems like a sensible timeframe to determine if the future relationship can be put in place before the end of the year. However, the Government, last week, passed an amendment to the Withdrawal Act that says no extension can be sought. That puts a no-deal scenario firmly back on the table.

I keep having to remind myself that this transition period to the end of this year was supposed to be for businesses and the public to adjust to the new arrangements. It is being used to try and get a new arrangement instead. Trade deals can often take years, if not decades.

The realisation that the Withdrawal Act was just the divorce will be in sharp focus.

Thrown to the wolves

The job for the Opposition is to set the bar high in terms of how we should be measuring any future deal. It is absolutely right to prevent a no-deal but we must be much more ambitious.

We should be looking to protect jobs, manufacturing and industry. We need to put national security and the safety of the public at the centre. We should be demanding that our hard-won worker and consumer rights are safeguarded. We should ensure environmental protections are improved and not diminished. And EU residents here and UK residents in the EU need to be able to continue to work, study, travel and live.

Any future deal should be flexible enough respond to changing circumstances. The Government will have no choice but to throw some sectors to the wolves. It’s impossible for them to protect everyone. But we must be able to shape any future trade deal when it is required to respond to circumstances.

As a Labour Party, we should leave all our cards on the table and that includes campaigning to re-enter the EU as a member state if it is in the national interest to do so and the circumstances demand it.

The next few months will see Boris Johnson’s chickens coming home to roost and they will be roosting (chlorinated or not) right outside his door. He can’t hide now. The country will be watching. For all our sakes, he can’t afford to get it wrong.

We are leaving the EU this week. I’m really sad about that.

Ian Murray is the Labour MP for Edinburgh South