Major tells of ‘terrible backlash’ over UK’s Brexit plan
THERESA MAY should offer MPs a free vote on the final Brexit deal, with the option of putting it to the public in a second referendum, former prime minister Sir John Major has said.
In a high-profile intervention in the Brexit debate, he warned of a “terrible backlash” from the public if EU withdrawal leaves the UK poorer and weaker, as forecasts suggest.
Sir John called on Mrs May to stand up to the “ultra-Brexit” minority in her party and drop her “red lines” of taking Britain out of the single market and customs union.
The red lines were opposed by a majority in both Houses of Parliament and had “boxed the Government into a corner” in negotiations, making a favourable outcome “impossible”, he said.
Unrealistic aspirations are usually followed by retreat. Sir John Major, speaking yesterday in London.
Warning that the Government’s negotiating position on Brexit was not realistic, he urged the Prime Minister to be prepared to “change course” and seek a Norway-style solution which would involve accepting single market rules and paying for access to EU markets.
It was “not credible” to expect to leave the single market, customs union and European Court of Justice while at the same time seeking a-la-carte access to European markets, he said.
Speaking in London yesterday just two days before Mrs May sets out her own vision for a post-Brexit Britain, Sir John warned: “Unrealistic aspirations are usually followed by retreat. That is a lesson for the negotiations to come.
“They will be the most difficult any Government has faced. Our aims have to be realistic. I am not sure they yet are.”