PM’s Chequers plan for Brexit ‘a constitutional outrage’ – Boris
BORIS Johnson has denounced Theresa May’s Chequers plan for EU withdrawal as a “constitutional outrage” that would leave the UK humiliated and unable to reap the economic benefits from Brexit
In an explosive intervention at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, the former foreign secretary warned that voters would not forgive the party for “bottling Brexit”.
He won a thunderous standing ovation as he urged Tories to persuade the Prime Minister to “chuck Chequers” and return to the hard Brexit blueprint she set out at Lancaster House in 2017, when she said she would take the UK out of the customs union, single market and jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
The former foreign secretary – who quit Mrs May’s Cabinet in July in protest at the Chequers plan – was mobbed by reporters as he arrived to speak to a packed 1,500-seater hall on the fringe of the Tory conference.
Inside, he was given a rapturous reaction on a scale not seen so far inside the main hall.
But Mrs May declared herself “cross” with her former Cabinet colleague, accusing him of being ready to “tear up” her guarantee to Northern Ireland that there would be no customs border in the Irish Sea.
The Prime Minister said she did not watch Mr Johnson’s address, preferring to talk with activists.
But she told the BBC: “There are one or two things that Boris said that I’m cross about. He wants to tear up our guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland.
“We have a guarantee for the people of Northern Ireland and we are upholding that. Our Chequers plan does that. It is the only plan on the table at the moment that does.”
Mrs May said that “Boris always puts on a good show”, but pointedly noted that he was “a key part” of the discussions at her country residence which ended with the plan being agreed in July.
Mr Johnson said that Mrs May’s Chequers blueprint – which ties Britain to a common rulebook with the EU for trade in goods – would be “politically humiliating for a £2 trillion > economy” and would subject the UK to European directives and rules.
Like a spaceship in a sci-fi film forced off its captain’s preferred route by hostile technology, the UK would be “locked in the tractor beam of Brussels”, he warned.
“This is not pragmatic, it is not a compromise. It is dangerous and unstable – politically and economically,” said the former foreign secretary.
“My fellow Conservatives, this is not democracy. This is not what we voted for. This is an outrage.
“This is not taking back control: this is forfeiting control.”
And he warned: “If we get it wrong – if we bottle Brexit now – believe me, the people of this country will find it hard to forgive.”
A Lancaster House-style Brexit would be a “win-win” for both Brit-