If there is one person in the United Kingdom who has turned the Brexit issue upside down, it is she, Theresa May, former Prime Minister, deposited by her own party for the benefit of Boris Johnson. His intervention in the House of Commons on Wednesday, December 30, when British parliamentarians have only one day to ratify the agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom, shows no bitterness. She called on all parties to support the agreement signed by Johnson, as the internal divisions in the UK have been deadly.
But behind this ecumenical call, the former tenant of 10 Downing Street nonetheless defends her convictions and her record. When she hears Labor today bitching against a bad deal, she recalls that they had the opportunity to vote for a better deal at the start of 2019 and that they preferred to vote against. She then spoke of the withdrawal agreement that she had negotiated with the European Union and which provided for the whole of the United Kingdom to remain in a form of customs union with the EU …
No UK access to the Schengen database
But his wisest remarks relate to the flaws in the current agreement, to future relations. She recalls that the absence of tariffs and quotas, cornerstone of the agreement, was already in the political declaration that she had signed with her white hand … Subtitle: Johnson did not invent anything and owes it to me. essential basis of the agreement …
As a former Home Secretary, she regrets that, on security, Europe has not given the United Kingdom access to its SIS (Schengen Information System) database, the most used by police to stop criminals and terrorists at the border. This database contains reports of perpetrators of terrorist offenses. “I think that in the future we should try to solve this problem because it is an important database which can help us to identify the criminals crossing our borders”, she underlined.
Services, the poor relation of the agreement
Finally, she made no secret of her disappointment with the agreement on trade in services. This represents 80% of the UK economy! She is not wrong to point out that British service providers, including Her Majesty’s lawyers or jurists, will have to submit to lots of restrictions by sector and varying from one European state to another. “The key sector is the financial sectors. In 2018, I told Mansion House [la mairie de Londres, NDLR] that we had to work towards an agreement on financial services in our future arrangements and that these would be truly revolutionary. It could have been. But, unfortunately, it did not succeed. We have a goods agreement, which benefits the EU, but no services agreement, which would have benefited the UK. “A poisoned arrow for Johnson who, in fact, has focused most of his attention on fishing, a sector which only represents 0.02% of British GDP …
The former Prime Minister hopes that things can still be fixed in the future, but she ended her speech with a sort of political manifesto: “Sovereignty does not mean isolation. This does not mean that we do not accept any agreement or its rules. This does not mean to always be in the exception. It is important, moving forward, to recognize that we live in an interconnected world. And, if the UK is to play the role that I believe it should play, it is not just by maintaining but by encouraging and promoting rules based on an international order. What if Theresa May hadn’t given up on returning to the Ten?
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