Boris: Cabinet must mutiny
Britain
Theresa May’s Brexit plans will force Britain to ‘‘remain in captivity’’, Boris Johnson warned yesterday as he says the Cabinet should stage a mutiny.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the former foreign secretary says the prime minister is ‘‘on the verge of total surrender’’ to Brussels and says her plans are a ‘‘recipe for continued strife’’.
Urging people to ‘‘savour the full horror of this capitulation’’, he says May’s plans for a customs union backstop are ‘‘shameful’’ and cannot be ‘‘conceivably’’ supported by any of her Cabinet. It came as Eurosceptic Cabinet ministers warned May that she will ‘‘feed the narrative of betrayal’’ and be defeated in Parliament if the UK is ‘‘trapped’’ in a customs union after Brexit.
Over the weekend, the EU rejected the Prime Minister’s plan for an ‘‘independent mechanism’’ that would enable Britain to break off temporary customs arrangements with Brussels after Brexit. The deadlock will increase pressure on the Prime Minister at Cabinet tomorrow, where a final decision on May’s Brexit plans is now likely to be delayed while negotiations with the EU continue.
It leaves the prime minister struggling to secure a November summit with European leaders to sign off her plans, increasing the risk that Britain will leave without a deal. Johnson’s intervention comes after the resignation last week of his brother, Jo, who said the prime minister’s handling of Brexit represented a ‘‘failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis’’.
Downing Street is braced for further resignations, with suggestions that four ministers who backed Remain could quit.
The former foreign secretary says that the backstop, which will keep Britain in a customs union with Brussels if no solution to the Irish border issue can be found, is worse than being in the EU.
He says: ‘‘I want you to savour the full horror of this capitulation. Under Article 50, the UK is at least able in theory to leave the EU. We do not have to consult any other authority. But under these proposals we are agreeing that the EU would have a say on whether this country is capable of making that final exit from the EU’S essential institution, the customs union.
‘‘In other words, we are on the verge of signing up for something even worse than the current constitutional position. These are terms that might be enforced on a colony.’’
He adds that ‘‘no member of the Government’’ should be able to support the backstop, but suggests that even if they rebel and secure the right to a ‘‘unilateral’’ break with the EU it will be meaningless.
He says: ‘‘The awful truth is that even if the Cabinet mutinies – as they ought – it will make little difference.
‘‘Even if we agree with the EU that the UK must have a unilateral break clause, so that we can go our own sweet way at a time of our own choosing, it is irrelevant: because the programme and ambition of the Government is to remain in captivity: to stay in our cell, even if we are given the theoretical key to escape.’’
He says that the prime minister will attempt to ‘‘bludgeon MPS into voting for surrender’’ by accepting her plans or the ‘‘chaos of no deal’’, describing her approach as a ‘‘scare tactic’’. Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, yesterday said any arrangement which gave the EU the power to stop Britain leaving the customs union would be voted down by MPS.
In Cabinet last week International
‘‘I want you to savour the full horror of this capitulation ... we are on the verge of signing up for something even worse than the current constitutional position. These are terms that might be enforced on a colony.’’ Boris Johnson, former UK foreign secretary
Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt told the prime minister that the failure to give voters a ‘‘definitive end point’’ to Brexit would ‘‘feed the narrative of betrayal’’.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove warned that the customs backstop could be ‘‘harder to exit than the EU itself’’ because Britain will not have a unilateral right to leave.