Please sack Johnson, MEPS tell May as trade talks are delayed

EUROPEAN Parliament leaders yesterday criticised British Cabinet divisions over Brexit and called on Theresa May to sack Boris Johnson, as MEPS in Strasbourg voted to postpone UK-EU trade talks until December.

Manfred Weber, the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), made the sacking call before the Brexit resolution was passed by 552 votes to 92 against with 29 abstentions. EU leaders do not have to follow the resolution.

The EU is refusing to talk trade until it judges “sufficient progress” has been made over the Irish border, citizens’ rights and the so-called Brexit bill. That decision was expected at an EU leaders’ summit this month. “Theresa May please don’t put your party first. Please put Britain first,” Mr Weber said. “Please sack Johnson because we need a clear answer for the British position.”

Jean-claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said the socalled Brexit bill would have to be paid in full. But Nigel Farage said: “Mrs May isn’t worldly enough to realise that when you face up to a bully, the one thing you shouldn’t do is appease him. I hope in Manchester the Conservative Party start saying in public what they are saying to me in private. That she’s a waste of space, that she needs to go.”