Boris Johnson: Why I won’t vote for Theresa May’s Brexit deal

I sincerely hoped that the Government would be able to make the wholly modest changes that this House urged them to make. And that there would be no risk that this country would find itself trapped in the backstop or no risk that we would lose our democratic right to make laws for this country, or pass them to a foreign entity for all time as we’re in danger of doing. But whatever the Government tried to do it has not I’m afraid succeeded. Now I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General on their efforts.

The result is that like Adam and Eve in the garden they have sewed an apron of fig leaves that does nothing to conceal the embarrassment and indignity of the UK. And as the Attorney General has confirmed in his admirably honest advice this backstop doesn’t just divide our country in fundamental ways, it ties our hands for the future and it sets us on a path to a subordinate relationship with the EU which is still despite what we were told yesterday, clearly based on the customs union and large parts of of the single market.