Leaders launch the blame game
BORIS JOHNSON has vowed to deliver Brexit by January at the “absolute latest” if the Tories win the General Election, as Jeremy Corbyn said the Prime Minister alone was to blame for the failure to meet a Halloween deadline.
On the day Britain was supposed to finally to leave the EU, the two main party leaders clashed over who was responsible for the continuing deadlock over Brexit more than three years after the referendum vote.
Mr Johnson – who pledged the UK would be out by the end of October “do or die” – was determined to point the finger of blame at a Parliament dominated by Remainsupporting MPs.
“There are just too many people who are basically opposed to Brexit, who want to frustrate it,” he told reporters during a visit to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.
“It was the mandate of the people. They voted by a pretty substantial majority to do this and Parliament has simply stood in their way.”
He said he had an “oven-ready” deal with Brussels which meant the UK would be out of the EU within a matter of weeks if the Conservatives were returned to power.
However, Mr Corbyn said Mr Johnson had to accept responsibility for his failure to honour the commitment he made during the Tory leadership campaign.
“He said he would rather be dead in a ditch than delay beyond today. But he has failed. And that failure is his alone,” he said.
The Prime Minister moved to call the election after MPs refused to fast-track his deal with Brussels through the Commons.
Mr Corbyn, kicking off Labour’s election campaign with a speech in Battersea, south London, said the only way to resolve Brexit was through a second referendum.
“We need to take it out of the hands of the politicians and trust the people to have the final say,” he said.
“Labour will get Brexit sorted within six months. We’ll let the people decide whether to leave with a sensible deal or remain. That really isn’t complicated.”
Mr Corbyn moved to sharpen the battlelines between the two main parties, highlighting Labour’s “ambitious and radical” programme to transform the nation.
To cheers from supporters, he also hit out at “tax dodgers, bad bosses, big polluters, and billionaire-owned media holding our country back” and called out the likes of media baron Rupert Murdoch and billionaire the Duke of Westminster.
Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump waded into the election campaign yesterday during a radio interview with Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage on LBC Radio.
“Corbyn would be so bad for your country, he’d be so bad, he’d take you on such a bad way,” Mr Trump warned.
He also said Mr Johnson is “a fantastic man... the exact right guy” for the UK, and that, should the PM “get together” with Mr Farage, those “two brilliant people” would make for an “unstoppable force”.