UK get ‘diddly squat’ from May’s Brexit plans-Boris Johnson

GB news 24 desk//

Boris Johnson has savaged 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 PM’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.

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 about the future relationship.

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 29 March.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.”

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

He said by using the strategy – defended by Mrs 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, Mr Johnson added, the government would “throw away most of the advantages of Brexit”.

Mr 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.”

He said the “scandal” around the border problem was “not that we have failed, but that we have not even tried”.

He concluded: “People can see that Chequers means disaster.

“The answer is to go for the one solution that both delivers Brexit and treats all the UK in the same way: a big and generous free trade deal, with intimate partnerships on foreign policy, justice and all the rest.”

Downing Street has yet to respond to Mr Johnson’s comments.Meanwhile, in an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Mr Barnier criticised 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.”

Mr Barnier has criticised Mrs 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 Mr Barnier’s remarks, a government spokeswoman said: “We are confident that we have put forward a proposal that is precise, pragmatic and that will work for the UK and the EU.

“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, Mrs 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.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned a no-deal Brexit would be a “big mistake for Europe”, although Britain “would survive and prosper”.

Various business groups have also warned about the possible impact on the UK of a no-deal Brexit.

The World Trade Organization – under whose rules the EU and UK would trade if no deal was agreed – said it “would not be end of the world… but it’s not going to be a walk in the park”.