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Brexit: Boris Johnson refuses to rule out resignation if he doesn't get what he wants on EU withdrawal | Brexit: Boris Johnson refuses to rule out resignation if he doesn't get what he wants on EU withdrawal |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Boris Johnson has left open the option of resigning from the Cabinet if he fails to get the clean break Brexit he is demanding, after a key speech. | Boris Johnson has left open the option of resigning from the Cabinet if he fails to get the clean break Brexit he is demanding, after a key speech. |
Asked to guarantee he would not walk out - if his senior colleagues decide to keep close alignment with EU regulations, in a long-term trade deal – the Foreign Secretary ducked the question. | |
Instead, he said only: “We are all very luck to serve. And I am certainly one of those.” | Instead, he said only: “We are all very luck to serve. And I am certainly one of those.” |
The comment came at the end of a speech in which Mr Johnson said it would be “intolerable and undemocratic” if Britain had to follow EU laws over which it had no say. | |
The stance is a direct challenge to Theresa May, ahead of the “away day” next week at which the Cabinet is meant to agree a united policy on whether to hug the EU close, or make a clean break. | |
However, Mr Johnson insisted he remained fully behind the Prime Minister’s aims for withdrawal. Asked if she was the “cure” for the country’s Brexit divisions, he replied: “Yes.” | |
The speech – which did not set out any new detailed Brexit policy – was criticised immediately by one prominent Conservative MP, Sarah Wollaston, the chairwoman of the Commons health select committee. | The speech – which did not set out any new detailed Brexit policy – was criticised immediately by one prominent Conservative MP, Sarah Wollaston, the chairwoman of the Commons health select committee. |
Ms Wollaston said she hoped Mr Johnson was “right” to be optimistic about Brexit, but tweeted: “His speech did not address any of the serious practical difficulties that will affect real people’s lives with a hard #Brexit.” | Ms Wollaston said she hoped Mr Johnson was “right” to be optimistic about Brexit, but tweeted: “His speech did not address any of the serious practical difficulties that will affect real people’s lives with a hard #Brexit.” |
And there was an immediate backlash from Brussels to the Foreign Secretary’s claim that Britain was being held back by the EU’s determination to “build a united states of Europe”. | And there was an immediate backlash from Brussels to the Foreign Secretary’s claim that Britain was being held back by the EU’s determination to “build a united states of Europe”. |
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said it was “total nonsense” to suggest the aim was a “European super state”. | Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said it was “total nonsense” to suggest the aim was a “European super state”. |
Andrew Adonis, the former Labour Cabinet minister and supporter of the pro-EU Best for Britain campaign, attacked Mr Johnson’s refusal to say whether he would resign as “more juvenile game playing”. | |
In contrast, the Leave Means Leave campaign hailed the speech as an “optimistic vision of Brexit” by Britain no longer being “handcuffed to EU regulations and bureaucracy” | |
“This is the positive tone the British public have been waiting for the Government to deliver,” said a delighted Richard Tice, the organisation’s co-chairman. | |
The 31-minute speech was billed as an attempt to build bridges with Remain voters who, he admitted, feared Brexit would make them less prosperous, less secure and cut off from Europe. | |
However, its real target was unnamed Cabinet ministers – led by Chancellor Philip Hammond – who believed the UK must, to avoid economic damage, “remain lashed to the minute prescriptions” from Brussels. | |
Mr Johnson urged Britain to have confidence in its “amazing economy”, adding: “We are the nation that has moved the furthest up the value chain of the 21st century economy. | |
“We are a nation of inventors, designers, scientists, architects, lawyers, insurers, water slide testers, toblerone cabinet makers.” | |
Any decision to remain aligned to the EU in some areas must be “voluntary”, not laid down in a post-Brexit trading treaty, Mr Johnson said. | |
The Foreign Secretary insisted the Brexit vote had been one for a positive future, denying it was “some un-British spasm of bad manners” and adding: “It’s not some great V-sign from the cliffs of Dover.: | |
And on the campaign for a further referendum on the final Brexit deal, Mr Johnson said: “I believe that we would simply have another year of wrangling and turmoil and feuding in which the whole country would be the loser.” |