Boris Johnson under fire over unworkable Brexit plan, accused for being ‘hostage to Nigel Farage’
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Boris Johnson has come under fire at home and abroad after breaking cover to reveal his Brexit plan, while admitting he will duck a live TV debate.
The overwhelming favourite to be prime minister next month was ridiculed for claiming a fear of Nigel Farage would force Brussels to grant him a better deal – with one senior EU figure saying: “No one is scared of him.”
“The Conservative Party may be being held hostage to Nigel Farage, but the EU never will be,” Sophie in ’t Veld, deputy to the European parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, told The Independent before condemning Mr Johnson’s “populist lies”.
The frontrunner was also accused of ignorance after insisting the solution to reaching an agreement – replacing the Irish backstop with hi-tech checks away from the border – was “obvious”. The claim was immediately criticised by a former assistant director at the Department for International Trade, who pointed out the EU had repeatedly rejected the idea as unworkable.
Meanwhile The Telegraph reports that Boris Johnson’s name could be the only one that goes forward to the party’s membership in the Conservative leadership election under a secret plan to avoid four weeks of damaging Tory bloodletting.
Senior Cabinet ministers who are not linked to any of the six contenders in the campaign are examining whether Mr Johnson’s name alone might forward to a “confirmatory” vote of the party’s 160,000 members.
The plan was hatched in the whips office amid concerns from party grandees that weeks of “blue on blue” attacks during a prolonged hustings battle will leave the eventual winner weakened and provide ammunition for Jeremy Corbyn.
