Remainers try to stop Brexit with ‘proxy war’
BRITAIN: Boris Johnson believes the Irish border is being used by Remainers to fight a ‘‘proxy war’’ to thwart Brexit as two former prime ministers raise the prospect of a second referendum.
The Foreign Secretary fears ‘‘ultra Remainers’’ in Westminster are among those taking part in the conspiracy as Theresa May prepares to make her third major Brexit speech tomorrow.
On the day that the Prime Minister rejected Brussels’ proposal for the EU Withdrawal Agreement, Sir John Major made speech in which he accused her of ‘‘bad politics’’.
He spoke less than three hours after Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, set out Brussels’ position, which demands that Northern Ireland remains part of the EU’s customs arrangements, effectively making the province an annexe of the EU.
Tomorrow, Tony Blair uses a speech in Brussels to urge EU leaders to help stop Brexit by making concessions that would make the British public change their minds about leaving the EU, triggering a second referendum.
Major said Parliament should have the right to order a second referendum if MPs rejected any proposed Brexit deal, as he claimed Britain was heading for ‘‘economic self-harm’’.
He also suggested May did not understand Irish politics and would endanger the peace process if she did not abandon her pledge to keep Britain out of a customs union with the EU.
Major’s speech was the latest in a series of events designed to undermine the argument for a clean Brexit. On Tuesday Jeremy Corbyn set out plans for Britain to remain part of a customs union with the EU if he became prime minister. Then on Wednesday came the leak of a letter on Ireland that Johnson circulated to the Prime Minister and nine Cabinet ministers.
Remainers in the Cabinet are suspected of being behind the ‘‘deliberately misleading’’ leak that suggested he did not object to a hard border. David Lidington, the Cabinet Office Minister, was forced to answer an urgent question from Labour in the Commons about the leak, insisting Johnson stood ‘‘foursquare’’ behind the Good Friday Agreement.
Blair was in Brussels yesterday to meet Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator, while Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, visited for talks with the European Commission.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, who heads a group of more than 60 Leavesupporting Tory MPs, said any attempt by Labour to collude with the EU to stop Brexit would be ‘‘infamous’’.
Johnson believes the events have been coordinated to overshadow Mrs May’s speech tomorrow.
One ally of the Foreign Secretary said: ‘‘The ultra-Remainers are determined to do everything in their power to stop the democratic will of the people who voted to leave.
‘‘The Irish border issue is being used as a proxy war to stop Brexit.’’
May rejected the EU’s 120-page document, saying: ‘‘No UK Prime Minister could ever sign up to it.’’
- Telegraph Group