Johnson Attacks May’s ‘White Flag’ Brexit

Boris Johnson has savaged British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans, saying they would leave the UK with “diddly squat” after the negotiations and hand the EU “victory”.

The former foreign secretary used his Daily Telegraph column to say the premier’s Chequers deal—which led him to resign in July—”means disaster” for Britain.

It comes as the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, says he is “strongly” opposed to parts of the plan, BBC reported.

The UK government insisted its Brexit strategy was “precise and pragmatic.”

The so-called Chequers deal was agreed by cabinet at the prime minister’s country residence as the UK’s preferred way forward in negotiations with Brussels.

May’s plan would see the UK agreeing a “common rulebook” with the EU for trading in goods, in an attempt to maintain friction-less trade at the border.

It also officially ends the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the UK, but the ECJ would continue to be “the interpreter of EU rules” that the UK has agreed to stick to.

Critics say the deal will leave the UK tied to EU rules and prevent Britain from striking its own trade deals in years to come.

The negotiations between the UK and EU have an informal deadline tied to a summit in October, although figures on both sides have said it could slip back to November. The UK is due to leave the EU on March29.

  Wrestling Match

In his first intervention since quitting the government, Johnson compared negotiations between Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and Barnier to a wrestling match.

He wrote, “The whole thing is about as pre-ordained as a bout between Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy; and in this case, I am afraid, the inevitable outcome is a victory for the EU, with the UK lying flat on the canvas and 12 stars circling symbolically over our semi-conscious head.”

Johnson said negotiations based on the Chequers plan had so far seen the EU take “every important trick,” adding that “the UK has agreed to hand over £40 billion of taxpayers’ money for two-thirds of diddly squat.”

He said by using the strategy—defended by May in the Sunday Telegraph over the weekend—the UK had “gone into battle with the white flag fluttering over our leading tank.”

If it continued on the same path, Johnson added, the government would “throw away most of the advantages of Brexit.”

Johnson also accused some members of the government of using the issue of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland to “stop a proper Brexit,” but added, “They have been rumbled.”

The “scandal” around the border problem was “not that we have failed, but that we have not even tried,” he added.

Downing Street has yet to respond to Johnson’s comments.

  End of Single Market

Meanwhile, in an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Barnier criticized the Chequers deal, saying to agree to it would see “the end of the single market and the European project.”

He said plans for a “common rulebook” for goods but not services were not in the EU’s interests, adding, “Our own ecosystem has grown over decades. You cannot play with it by picking pieces.”

Barnier has criticized May’s Chequers plan previously, but sources close to him told the BBC he had not been this explicit before.

“The British have a choice,” he said. “They could stay in the single market, like Norway, which is also not a member of the EU, but they would then have to take over all the associated rules and contributions to European solidarity. It is your choice.

“But if we let the British pick the raisins out of our rules, that would have serious consequences.

“Then all sorts of other third[-party] countries could insist that we offer them the same benefits.”

Responding to Barnier’s remarks, a government spokeswoman said of Chequers, “This proposal achieves a new balance of rights and obligations that fulfils our joint ambition to establish a deep and special partnership once the UK has left the EU while preserving the constitutional integrity of the UK. There is no other proposal that does that.

“Our negotiating teams have upped the intensity, and we continue to move at pace to reach, as Mr. Barnier says, an ambitious partnership, which will work in the mutual interests of citizens and businesses in the UK and in the EU.”

On Sunday, May wrote that she was “confident” a “good deal” could be reached on Brexit.

But she said it was right for the government to prepare for a no-deal scenario—even though this would create “real challenges for both the UK and the EU” in some sectors.