Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team MPs set to approve Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal today… MPs are set to approve Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal on Friday, triggering the final stage of exiting the European Union three and a half years after the vote to Leave. The Commons will vote on the second reading of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which enshrines the deal in law, after Mr Johnson won a commanding majority in last week’s general election. The result means that the draft law is certain to pass its second reading before parliament disbands for Christmas. It is expected to then be rushed through the Commons and Lords early in the new year to deliver Brexit by 31 January. – Independent Prime Minister hails ‘new dawn’ as MPs prepare to vote on Brexit Bill – ITV News …as the Government insist the legislation has been ‘Gina Miller-proofed’… Boris Johnson’s new Brexit Bill has been beefed up to stop campaigners trying to scupper its progress in the courts ahead of the UK’s expected exit from the European Union in six weeks’ time. Conservative MPs cheered yesterday as the House of Commons agreed to sit on Friday to consider legislation required to implement the Prime Minister’s deal that he hammered out with EU leaders last October. The news came as the Government confirmed that the Department for Exiting the European Union will be disbanded at the end of next month as Brexit happens. The announcement prompted speculation that Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove will be given a new role running an enlarged Department for International Trade in February’s expected Cabinet reshuffle. – Telegraph (£) Boris Johnson strips Parliament of powers to tamper with his Brexit plans – The Sun …while Boris Johnson is accused of ‘binning’ compromises in the Bill Boris Johnson faced accusations he had “binned” his withdrawal deal compromises in favour of a hard Brexit as MPs prepare to vote on his exit terms. As part of his general election pledge to have Brexit “decided” by Christmas, the Prime Minister will bring back the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill for its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday. After Mr Johnson won a landslide at the general election and secured an 80-seat majority, the vote in the afternoon is expected to pass without a hitch for the Government and lay the ground for a January exit from the EU. – ITV News Leave-Backing Labour MPs set to defy Corbyn and vote for Johnson’s Bill… Jeremy Corbyn risks further damaging his party’s “bond” with working class Leave voters when MPs try to block Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill, a Labour Leave rebel has said. Speaking after last week’s crushing defeat for Labour in the general election, South Shields MP Emma Lewell-Buck told HuffPost UK “there needs to be an acceptance” from the party’s frontbench that the public want Brexit. Lewell-Buck says she and a handful of Labour MPs with Leave-backing constituencies will rebel and vote with the government on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill. The legislation paves the way for the UK to leave the EU on January 31. HuffPost UK understands that Labour plans to oppose the bill at second reading. – Huffington Post …as one Labour MP says voting against the Brexit deal is ‘putting two fingers up to Labour Leave voters’ Graham Stringer, the MP for Blackley and Broughton, who is also the former Director of Labour Leave, told Iain Dale that the move was a ‘fundamental mistake’. The Labour MP gave his reaction to LBC about Labour whipping to vote against Boris Johnson’s deal – he said that the move was a fundamental mistake and that it was ‘putting two fingers up at Labour leave voters’. He said that the move was sending out ‘completely the wrong message’. Graham Stringer also urged Labour to reconsider the Party’s official position and to instead have an ‘official position of abstaining’ as to ‘vote in against, in principle, leaving the EU is not recognising what happened last Thursday’. – LBC Brexit Department to be wound up after 31st January The Department for Exiting the European Union is to be wound up once the UK leaves the bloc at the end of January. A government spokesperson said staff in the department, created by Theresa May following the referendum result in 2016, had been informed. “We are very grateful for all their work and we will help everyone to find new roles,” the spokesperson said. The news comes amid reports of the government’s intention to change the language used to describe the UK’s exit from the EU in order to reinforce the idea that “Brexit is done”. According to the Huffington Post, the prime minister has ordered officials to drop the term “Brexit” once the withdrawal agreement is passed and the UK leaves the EU on 31 January as planned. The website reports that No 10’s Brexit press team will be renamed after that, with “Europe and economy” one new name being floated by officials. – Guardian The Lib Dem vow to cancel Brexit was not ‘realistic’, admits acting leader Sir Ed Davey The Lib Dem co-leader – who stepped into the role following the election defeat of Jo Swinson – said that while the pledge had only been “marginal” to Lib Dem plans, it may have confused the presentation of the party’s anti-Brexit platform. The Lib Dems ended up with 10 fewer MPs after election night, losing high-profile names including Ms Swinson and the party’s EU spokesperson Tom Brake. Every MP who defected to the party from Labour and the Conservatives over the course of the past year was also defeated in a torrid night for the Lib Dems. Sir Ed told the i he had ordered a panel, including a team of independent experts, to investigate the result, as he cast his verdict on the pledge to revoke Article 50 if the Lib Dems secured a majority. – PoliticsHome Anna Soubry disbands the Independent Group for Change The Independent Group for Change is being disbanded after failing to win any seats at the general election, leader Anna Soubry has said. The party was founded last March by Labour and Tory MPs unhappy with the direction their parties were going in. The 11 MPs aimed to create a new centre ground force in politics. But some members left to join the Lib Dems or quit politics, and the remaining four all lost their seats to candidates from their former parties. Eight Labour MPs left the party to form the breakaway group, citing Labour’s Brexit policy and record on tackling anti-Semitism. They were later joined by three Remain-supporting Conservative MPs, Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen. – BBC News Independent Group For Change disbands after losing every MP – Independent Independent Group for Change to shut down as a political party – Metro Joe Armitage: This Queen’s Speech shows Vote Leave has taken back even more control It will no longer be possible for figures like Dominic Grieve to attempt to cut off funding for pensioners and hospital or force the government to publish sensitive papers in order to stymie the government’s efforts to deliver Brexit. The Brexiteers have firmly taken back control. It is only fitting, therefore, that the standout feature of the Speech is additional funding for the NHS that exceeds the £350m on the side of Vote Leave’s bus. Many in the commentariat argue that Johnson’s programme for government is threadbare and lacking in its ambition. These same people are often the ones who simultaneously advance the claim that the all-consuming nature of Brexit will require unpicking four decades’ worth of regulatory harmonisation with the EU, amounting to the greatest peacetime challenge for the UK. Determined to have more faces than a town clock, these individuals were also the ones contending throughout the referendum campaign that the EU had a negligible impact on UK law. – Joe Armitage for the Telegraph (£) Tim Worstall: The case for a Singapore-on-Thames Brexit According to the European Union any trade or other deal post-Brexit should keep current labour and environmental regulation so that “UK businesses cannot outcompete their EU rivals through deregulation”. That raises an interesting question – why should the UK not do precisely that and outcompete our continental neighbours? Don’t think of this as just a matter of rivalry though. The real consideration here is what the best policies are to raise our own standard of living? The answer is obvious – dump those unnecessary regulatory constraints. The EU’s position alone underlines that its own bureaucracy is an economic burden – if it were not, why would changing our regulations put the UK at a competitive advantage? – Tim Worstall for CapX Asa Bennett: Here’s why Brexiteers should raise a glass to Theresa May, the Tories’ unsung hero Christmas is meant to be a time for gratitude. So as Leavers contemplate their lot—a committed Brexiteer prime minister in Boris Johnson on the verge of using his fresh and huge majority to deliver on the referendum result—there is a list of people they should thank. Mr Johnson can rightly revel at the top, while those around him all deserve their place, but there is one Conservative colleague who risks not getting her due credit: Theresa May. My mere mention of the former Prime Minister’s name will send some readers rushing to pour bile on her, no doubt triggered by the recollection of her idiosyncratic manner, or the deal she tried in vain to pass through Parliament. These days, it seems only those who worked for Mrs May can be expected to stick up for her. But there is one big reason Mr Johnson, who was driven by her Brexit deal to resign from cabinet and regularly criticised it in the Telegraph, might secretly be grateful to her. – Asa Bennett for the Telegraph (£) Brexit in Brief Back to reality: UK defence after Brexit – Get Britain Out’s Joshua Mackenzie-Lawrie for The Commentator