The National:

TORY MP Mark Francois gave a cringeworthy contribution to today’s Commons Brexit deal debate with references to the “battle” for Brexit, Winston Churchill and Mel Gibson as Braveheart.

The Brexiteer claimed the UK can now write a new chapter as a “free people” after a “truly epic struggle” with the EU.

The chairman of the European Research Group proclaimed that the “battle for the Union” is soon to begin. Seconds later he quoted Mel Gibson as William Wallace in the 1995 film Braveheart.

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He told the Commons: “What I call the ‘battle for Brexit’ is now over, we won. But I suspect the battle for the Union is now about to begin.

“We’re about to write a new chapter in what Sir Winston Churchill called our island’s story.

“But now, after a truly epic struggle, we will do it as a free people.”

Francois added: “Mel Gibson once made a very entertaining film, but this is ‘cry freedom’ for real and now finally, it’s true.”

SNP MP John Nicolson joked on Twitter: “Mark François says ‘the battle for the Union has now begun’. Quotes ‘Braveheart’. Concludes ‘Freedom’. Not sure he’s quite thought through that historical reference.”

In case anyone needs reminding, William Wallace was one of the leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence – not particularly aligned with Francois’s Unionist views …

In his embarrassing speech, Francois also compared his Brexiteer colleagues to “Spartans” and suggested they should now “lower our spears”.

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He told the Commons: “Thanks to this agreement on New Year’s Eve we will finally leave the European Union forever, so perhaps Big Ben will bong for Brexit after all.

“Nigel Farage memorably said last week, ‘the war is over’. Well it sometimes has felt like a war in this place.

“So perhaps we should now take on board the advice of the Prophet Isaiah who said, ‘and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’.

“In that case, perhaps I and my Spartan friends should now lower our spears too, but perhaps keep them to hand just in case one day someone, perhaps the leader of the Opposition, should try and take us back in.

“My colleagues in the European Research Group have fought long and hard for this day and we have sometimes been lampooned or even vilified by the Remain-dominated electronic media for our trouble when all we have ever wanted is one thing – to live in a free country that elects its own government and makes its own laws here in Parliament and then lives under them in peace.”