‘Bog roll’ Boris in shock four-letter outburst on Brexit
Outrage as blundering Johnson tells EU diplomats ‘F*** business’
BORIS JOHNSON faced an angry backlash in the UK last night over a four-letter outburst at Brexit critics at a reception to honour the Queen.
The British foreign secretary is said to have replied ‘f*** business’ when asked about employers’ fears that leaving the EU could damage British jobs and industry.
His comments at a Foreign Office reception to celebrate the Queen’s birthday shocked fellow guests.
They came after the UK boss of German-owned high-tech giant Siemens echoed warnings by Airbus
‘What business has Boris Johnson ever run?’
and BMW about the effect of Brexit on British jobs.
Mr Johnson’s four-letter outburst was reportedly overheard by two diplomats when he was talking to Belgium’s EU envoy Rudolf Huygelen. He also said he did not want a ‘bog-roll Brexit’ that was ‘soft, yielding and indefinitely long’.
His coarse comments were criticised by business leaders and MPs as ‘insulting’ and ‘demeaning’.
But his supporters shrugged off the attacks as ‘typical Boris political knock-about’.
Mr Johnson’s ‘f*** business’ comment was not his only indiscretion in Whitehall where, coincidentally, Theresa May set out her EU policy in a key note speech last year.
Quizzed over the prime minister’s support for a so-called ‘soft Brexit’ deal, rather than the ‘hard Brexit’ he favours, Mr Johnson said he would force her to back down, vowing: ‘We will fight it [soft Brexit] and we will win.’
Sowing further confusion, moments after telling guests in his formal speech that Brexit was ‘wonderful’, he confided privately that the UK was more divided now than since the English Civil War.
A source close to Mr Johnson said the foreign secretary had ‘no recollection’ of saying ‘f*** business’ – Westminster code for a non-denial.
He had been attacking proEU business lobbyists such as the Confederation of British Industry, which opposed Brexit, the source added.
John Neill, chairman of car parts group Unipart, said: ‘I find it hard to believe Boris said this but if he did, he has just insulted millions of people who work in business, from CEOs to the shop floor – and they are the people who pay for health care and education services. I find it astonishing, almost unbelievable. I am virtually speechless that a cabinet minister could gratuitiously say such a thing.’
Lord Rose, Tory peer and former chairman of Marks & Spencer, said Mr Johnson’s comment was ‘shocking and sad’.
Lord Rose, who campaigned against Brexit, told the MoS: ‘You can’t dismiss the whole of industry by saying “business should shut up”. What business has Boris Johnson ever run?
‘There is a delayed realisation that we face a very serious situation and a refusal to understand that business must have a say. We have to come to an agreement with the EU by spring next year and we haven’t got a position.’
Responding to Mr Johnson’s ‘bogroll Brexit’ jibe, Lord Rose said a poor Brexit deal or no deal would ‘be like being in the bog without a bog-roll – that’s a lot more unpleasant to contemplate’.
His comments were mirrored by Juergen Maier, the chief executive of Siemens UK, who challenged ‘sloganising’ Mr Johnson.
‘How about less slogans and a pragmatic #SmartBrexit that works for all sides?’ asked Mr Maier in a tweet. ‘Two years on and yet more slogans of a “full British Brexit”, yet the two years have proven there is no such thing, because we can’t solve this alone.’
In his blog before Mr Johnson is said to have made his controversial remarks, Mr Maier said: ‘We know now that we have been sold a crock.’