The Brexit plan recently proposed by Theresa May is “a suicide vest” wrapped around the British constitution, and the detonator has been handed to Brussels, Boris Johnson has said.
Johnson, who resigned as the British foreign secretary following a spat with May over the deal, attacked her plan in harshest terms in remarks written for the Daily Mail.
He insists that the UK has opened itself to “perpetual political blackmail.”“We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to [EU chief Brexit negotiator] Michel Barnier,” he wrote.
“At every stage in the talks so far, Brussels gets what Brussels wants. We have agreed to the EU’s timetable; we have agreed to hand over £39 billion ($50.4 billion), for nothing in return,” Johnson stated in the piece, which was published on Sunday.
Under the current plan, the UK is “set to agree to accept” Brussels’ rules, the politician says. “It is a humiliation. We look like a seven-stone (44kg) weakling being comically bent out of shape by a 500lb (226kg) gorilla,” he added.
Johnson also criticized the Northern Ireland “backstop” by assuming that the UK has given Barnier “a jimmy” with which Brussels can choose at any time “to crack apart” the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
A number of prominent Conservatives criticized Johnson for his statements. Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee Tom Tugendhat took to Twitter, calling upon the former foreign secretary to “grow up.”
“There is no justification for such an outrageous, inappropriate and hurtful analogy,” Minister of State for International Development Alistair Burt added.
According to Minister of State for Europe and the Americas Alan Duncan, Johnson’s statement “marks one of the most disgusting moments in modern British politics.”
The PM managed to secure the controversial Brexit plan, which is also known as the Chequers deal, at a marathon session of talks with her Cabinet in July. The strategy, which defines the relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit, caused a stir both among politicians and British voters.
Opinion polls from July show that British voters overwhelmingly disapprove of May’s handling of Brexit. Instead, they would pin their hopes on a man who was only recently seen as a “liability” – Boris Johnson.
The prolonged Brexit talks have left the Tory government in dire straits. It has seen a string of ministerial resignations, which involved not only Johnson but also the now-former Brexit secretary David Davis.
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