– Madam President, so this is it, , the end of : a 47—year that the British, frankly, have never been . and father to a , , not to , , – and now you even want your own .

For me, it’s been of campaigning and over 20 years here in this Parliament. I’m not particularly happy with the agreement we’re being asked to vote on tonight, but Boris has been remarkably bold in the last few months and, Ms von der Leyen, he’s made it clear: he’s promised us there’ll be no level playing field. And, on that basis, I wish him every success in the next round of negotiations, I really do.

But is this: what happens at 11p.m. this marks the point of no return. Once we’ve left , and the rest, frankly, is . We’re going, we will be gone – and that should be the summit of my own political ambitions. I walked in here – as I’ve said before, you all thought it was terribly funny, you stopped laughing in 2016 – but my view has changed of Europe since I joined.

In 2005, I saw the Constitution that had been drafted by Giscard and others. I saw it by the in . I saw it rejected by . And I saw you, , them, bring it back as the Lisbon Treaty and boast you could ram it through [pousser de force] without there being referendums. Well, the Irish did have a vote and did say no and . You’re very good at making people . But what we proved is, are too , thank goodness.

So I became an outright [entièrement] opponent of the entire European project. I want Brexit to start a debate across the rest of Europe. What do we want from Europe? If we want , , , , we don’t need a . We don’t need a . We don’t need these . And I can promise you, both in UKIP and indeed in the Brexit party, we love Europe; we just hate the European Union. It’s a simple as that.

So I’m hoping this begins the end of this project. It’s a bad project. It isn’t just , it’s anti—democratic, and it puts in that front row, it gives people power without accountability – people who cannot be held to account by the electorate. And that is an unacceptable structure.

Indeed, there’s an historic battle going on now across the West: in Europe, America and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I’ll tell you a funny thing, it’s becoming very popular, and it has great benefits: no more financial contributions, no more European Court of Justice, no more common fisheries policy, no more being talked down to, no more being bullied, no more Guy Verhofstadt. I mean, what’s not to like?

I know , I know you want to , but we’re going to and we’ll look forward, in the future, to working with you as sovereign...