Boris Johnson: Theresa May's plan for Brexit is an 'outrage'
The former foreign secretary's major speech, which covered a breadth of topics, indicates he still has designs on Downing Street.
Tuesday 2 October 2018 22:25, UK
Boris Johnson has slammed Theresa May's blueprint for leaving the EU as an "outrage" that would reduce Britain to being "locked in the tractor beam of Brussels".
Seeking to deal what he hopes will be a mortal blow to the prime minister's controversial Chequers plan, the former foreign secretary said sticking with it would "embolden" those calling for a second referendum, as well as the far left and far right.
Responding to Mr Johnson's latest intervention, the PM told Sky News: "Boris always puts on a good show, but what matters to people is what we're delivering for them on the things that affect their day to day lives."
Mr Johnson quit Mrs May's Cabinet in protest against the Chequers proposal, which critics argue would leave Britain too closely aligned to EU rules and regulations and fail to deliver on the 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
In a speech to a packed crowd of MPs, activists and journalists at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Mr Johnson said it was a "total fantasy" that Britain could "bodge" Brexit now and then negotiate a better deal at a later date.
Chequers was, he said, "not what we voted for" and a recipe for "continued acrimony" as it would encourage calls for another vote, something which would be "disastrous for trust in politics".
As his father Stanley and sister Rachel watched on, Mr Johnson said: "This is not pragmatic, it is not a compromise. It is dangerous and unstable - politically and economically.
"My fellow Conservatives, this is not democracy. This is not what we voted for. This is an outrage.
"This is not taking back control: this is forfeiting control."
Chequers, he claimed, would "cheat" the electorate and "escalate the sense of mistrust", adding: "If we get it wrong - if we bottle Brexit now - believe me, the people of this country will find it hard to forgive."
While the thrust of his speech was for a change in policy and not a change in leader, the breadth of topics covered and the broad vision Mr Johnson sought to outline will have left those who heard his speech in no doubt that he still has designs on Downing Street.
He said the Tories should bring back stop and search, look to cut taxes where possible, called for an increase in house building and said the party should extol the virtues of the free market to contrast the party to Labour's plans for nationalising industries.
Numerous prominent Brexit-backing MPs were front and centre for the speech, including former Brexit secretary David Davis, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and ex-Cabinet minister Priti Patel.
But while Mr Johnson sought to sell his political vision to the audience, it was Brexit that took up the bulk of his speech.
He urged delegates to persuade the PM to "chuck" Chequers and return to the policies set out in her Lancaster House speech of January 2017, something he said would be a "win-win" for both Britain and the EU.
Back then, Mrs May said Britain would leave the customs union and single market and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
Mr Johnson has argued for months that the PM has lost sight of these goals and set out a plan that leaves Britain too close to Brussels.
In his speech, he suggested Mrs May was at risk of being prosecuted under a 14th-century law saying "no foreign court or government shall have jurisdiction in this country".
The Chequers blueprint, agreed by Mrs May's top team after marathon talks in July, would see Britain adopt a common rulebook for trade in goods with the EU.
The PM argues her plan is the only workable solution that delivers on the will of the people expressed in the referendum and avoids a hard border in Northern Ireland.
And she repeated that in her Sky News interview on Tuesday, saying Chequers "delivers on the vote of the British people, it means we take back control of our money, our borders, and our laws, we will end free movement once and for all".
However, Mr Johnson said it would be "politically humiliating for a £2tn economy" and would prevent the UK from making its own laws and subject it to EU directives.
There was loud applause and cheers as he said: "For one last time, I urge our friends in government to deliver what the people voted for, to back Theresa May in the best way possible - by softly, quietly, and sensibly backing her original plan [Lancaster House].
"And in so doing to believe in conservatism and to believe in Britain.
"Because if we get it wrong we will be punished. And if we get it right we can have a glorious future.
"This government will then be remembered for having done something brave and right and remarkable and in accordance with the wishes of the people."
Former Brexit minister Steve Baker, who was in the audience, said Mr Johnson was "our best evangelist for Conservatism bar none".
He denied critics of the PM's Brexit strategy were destabilising the party, saying: "The Chequers plan is destabilising the party."
Tory party vice chair James Cleverly said he did not see the speech because he was "working" and added he knew what Mr Johnson was going to say because "I know what he's said the last three or four times he's said it".
Conservative MP Guto Bebb, a supporter of the People's Vote campaign for a second referendum, said Mr Johnson's speech showed that he "still has no answers to the difficult questions posed by Brexit".