Ross Thomson: Why I voted against the withdrawal agreement

Ross Thomson, Scottish Conservative MP for Aberdeen South

It gave me no pleasure to vote against the Withdrawal Agreement.

As a Unionist first and foremost, I could not support a plan that would treat Northern Ireland like a foreign country within our United Kingdom and impose a regulatory border down the Irish Sea.

It would risk the very fabric of the Union and would be a gift to Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.

The prime minister has said many times that no deal is better than a bad deal.

Make no mistake, this was a bad deal.

It would stop us signing free trade deals with the world’s fastest growing economies.

It would lock us into EU rules indefinitely. It would be bad for Scottish fishermen. It would not hold true to the 2016 referendum result and it would badly batter the public’s faith in democracy.

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Now it has been resoundingly rejected, the PM should return to Brussels and make clear the UK parliament will not support it.

We want a free trade deal with the EU and we should not be afraid to push much harder to secure that.

But if the EU will not budge, then we should be prepared to leave under WTO terms.