The purpose of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is to put the Withdrawal Agreement into UK domestic law. Nothing that MPs add to it can change the text of what the UK and the EU agreed last week. For this reason it is wrong, whatever the merits of it, to try and add a customs union to this bill. Its function is not to determine the future relationship but to put the exit deal into UK law.
If MPs feel strongly that a customs union is the right choice for the UK – I don’t, but there is a significant group of parliamentarians who believe this – then they will have an opportunity to express that view very soon. Boris Johnson has accepted the so-called Nandy / Snell amendments which mean that parliament will get to vote on the negotiating mandate for the trade talks.
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