The former Tory leader Boris Johnson, who led the 2016 EU Leave campaign without a plan for Brexit, moaned the new UK-EU deal went back on the promise to voters
Ex-PM Boris Johnson has been ridiculed after he hastily attempted to brand Keir Starmer’s new UK-EU deal a “total sell-out”.
The former Tory leader, who led the 2016 EU Leave campaign without a plan for Brexit, moaned the new deal went back on the promise to voters. It came as Mr Starmer unveiled a new UK-EU pact on Monday alongside the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at Lancaster House.
More than four years on from Mr Johnson’s botched trade agreement, Mr Starmer said the agreement was a “win-win” with benefits for shoppers, tourists and firms. He also insisted it was time to move on from the “stale old” political rows over Brexit.
But within minutes the ex-PM, who was reported in 2018 to have said “f*** business” amid rows over the UK’s exit from the EU, was quick with his hot take on X. He complained about the 12-year fishing agreement – despite agreeing to a deal on fishing with Brussels in 2020, which had been due to expire next year.
He posted: “Two-tier Keir is once again going back on his promise to the people of this country – by making us non-voting members of a two-tier European Union. Under this appalling sell out of a deal the UK will have to accept EU law on a host of measures from food standards to emissions trading.
(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“We will have to accept whatever changes the EU decides to make to those laws.”
The ex-PM went on: “Two-tier Keir is the orange ball-chewing manacled gimp of Brussels. He has sacrificed UK fishing interests, handing over our seas to be plundered again – when under the current Brexit agreement we are on the point of taking back full legal control, next year, of every fish in our waters.”
A Labour source told The Mirror: “The last thing anyone needs is an intervention from this abject failure. Boris Johnson partied through lockdown, botched Brexit, and ran our public services into the ground. His next pretentious monologue should be an apology.”
Tony Blair’s former director of communications, Alastair Campbell, also posted on X: “Oh do shut up. He is trying to undo some of the enormous damage you did with your dreadful deal and after your and Farage lies got us out in the first place.
“Sadly it won’t undo it all but at least national interest comes ahead of ambition and charlatanism.”
Liz Webster, the founder of Save British Farming, told LBC that Mr Johnson betrayed farmers with Brexit. She said: “For us farmers, Brexit lost us the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] and the real betrayal for farmers came from Boris Johnson. He stood in the cattle market and promised farmers they would give us more support and actually we’ve ended up with o no support for food.”
New Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who also criticised Labour’s new deal, previously admitted her party’s misakes on Brexit.
During a speech in January, she said: “I will acknowledge the Conservative Party made mistakes and I understand why the British people made it so clear in July that we needed to change. We were making announcements without proper plans. We announced that we would leave the European Union before we had a plan for growth outside the EU.”
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