Fury at Boris ‘suicide vest’ gaffe
Brexiteer condemned for ‘suicide vest vitriol’
IRISH politicians reacted with anger yesterday to Boris Johnson’s remarks that Theresa May has handed the European Union ‘a suicide belt’ by capitulating on the Irish border.
The Brexit-championing Tory politician had been seen as a threat to Mrs May’s leadership, but his incendiary comments appear to have backfired – as it emerged last night that at least a dozen Conservative MPs are ready to quit the party to stop Mr Johnson becoming leader.
Such a turn of events would do no favours for already-slow progress on a workable Brexit deal for Britain and Ireland.
Reacting to Mr Johnson’s comments, which critics claimed were a ruse to distract from the breakdown of his marriage over claims of another affair, Sinn Féin MLA Máirtin Ó Muilleoir said it was ‘appalling’ and that his language was both ‘foolish and dangerous’.
Mr Ó Muilleoir said Mr Johnson’s comments show Britain’s former foreign secretary – who resigned from his post over Mrs May’s approach to the negotiations on exiting the EU – has little understanding of the fragility of the peace process in the North.
‘Anyone who doesn’t understand how fragile the peace here is, and how fragile the progress we have made is, mustn’t be watching the news because for 600 days we haven’t been able to form a local government here because fault lines within this society remain,’ he told BBC News.
Claire Hanna, the SDLP’s spokeswoman on Brexit, said Mr Johnson had ‘absolutely no regard for people on this island’.
‘He is completely indifferent to the complexities of issues here,’ she said.
The anti-Boris faction that has developed in the Tory party ahead of a looming leadership contest issued a warning last night that they would quit the Conservatives if he is made leader.
Mr Johnson’s critics accused him of using disgusting language and said the timing of the comments was to deflect from the news that he is being divorced by his longsuffering wife Marina over claims of another affair. Yesterday he faced fresh revelations about his relationship with Carrie Symonds, who abruptly quit as Tory communications director last month.
With the Conservatives descending into open warfare, allies of Mr Johnson hit back, accusing No10 of orchestrating a smear campaign with the leak of a ‘dirty dossier’ on his love life.
But Britain’s Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan, who served as Mr Johnson’s deputy, yesterday described him as an ‘irresponsible wrecker’ and vowed to stop him becoming party leader.
Sarah Wollaston, Tory chairman of the Commons health committee, yesterday became the fourth MP to warn publicly that she would resign from the party if Mr Johnson toppled Mrs May.
A senior Tory said 12 or more MPs would refuse to serve under the former foreign secretary – effectively depriving the British government of a majority.
‘Boris will never be prime minister – he would split the party,’ the MP said. ‘There are a large number of us determined to make sure he does not get onto the ballot paper whenever the leadership contest takes place. If he did somehow manage to win then there are many of us – well into double figures – who would resign the party whip.
‘He would lose the government’s majority. He could not govern.’
‘Irresponsible wrecker’
Mr Johnson had been on the back foot following revelations last week that his 25-year marriage was over.
But yesterday he went on the attack with a condemnatory article in which he renewed his criticism of Mrs May’s handling of Brexit. He wrote that she’d allowed the Northern Ireland issue to become ‘grossly inflated’ and warned Brexit would fail unless she tore up the so-called ‘backstop’ agreed with the EU last December, which would keep the North in the Customs Union.
Mr Johnson also described Mrs May’s Chequers plan, which would require Britain to follow a common rulebook with the EU, as a humiliation. ‘We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier (the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator),’ he wrote.
‘He could not govern’