Rejoice! 2020 is gone. It is no more. Good riddance.
Signs for a better 2021 are positive. We’ve got Brexit done and secured a good trade deal. It looks like we will have most of the very vulnerable vaccinated by the end of February. That’s bound to be followed by falling hospital admissions and deaths and the ability of everyone else to get back to something approaching normal.
Parliament was recalled from recess on Wednesday (primarily) to debate and vote on the Prime Minister’s UK-EU trade deal. I welcomed the deal when it was announced on Christmas Eve and I voted for it – alongside 520 of my Conservative and Labour colleagues – on Wednesday.
At the very least, this avoids a highly challenging No Deal scenario - something which the SNP and the Lib Dems would seemingly have preferred, having failed to support the deal. They won’t be allowed to forget that and the businesses that now have certainty, no tariffs and no quotas will carefully note their detachment from the real world.
The deal offers the UK an opportunity to trade with the EU on a zero tariff and zero quota basis (the first deal of its kind ever agreed by the EU) whilst delivering promises to take back control of our money, borders and laws, thus ending jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
It offers us a new beginning of cordial and productive relations with the EU and the chance to heal domestic wounds and move on from the divisive referendum of 2016. So divisive in fact that nobody in their right mind should be entertaining one on Scottish separatism. It would likely be far worse, more rancorous if the SNP’s preferred way of working is any guide and technically far more difficult.
Entering the New Year as a fully sovereign nation, we will have the freedom to forge our own future as a Global Britain. As a trade envoy, I am particularly excited to play my part in this new chapter.
I’d like to wish everyone a much happier New Year.