Boris Johnson blasts ‘terrible collaboration’ between MPs and EU
Boris Johnson has blasted pro-Remain MPs for a “terrible collaboration” with the EU to prevent a no-deal Brexit, during his first ‘People’s PMQs’.
The Prime Minister used a live Facebook stream to answer pre-posted questions from members of the public, the first of which was about Brexit.
Johnson said: “There’s a terrible collaboration, as it were, going on between people who think they can block Brexit in parliament and our European friends, and our European friends are not moving in their willingness to compromise… They are sticking with every comma, letter of the Withdrawal Agreement including the backstop, because they still think that Brexit can be blocked in parliament.
“And so the awful thing is the longer that goes on the more likely it is we will be forced to leave with a no-deal Brexit. That is not what I want, that is not what we are aiming for, but we need our European friends to compromise. The more they think there is a chance Brexit can be blocked in parliament, the more adamant they are in sticking to their position. “
This morning, former Chancellor Philip Hammond urged Johnson to climb down from his position, warning that a no-deal Brexit would be a “betrayal” of the 2016 referendum result.
In response to a question about holding another vote before Halloween, Johnson said: “I think the British public have had a lot of elections and electoral events -” but stopped short of ruling it out.
He signed off with a question about his political hero, who alongside Winston Churchill, Johnson said was Pericles of Athens, because he “believed in all sorts of wonderful things. He certainly believed in great infrastructure projects, he believed in the importance of the many not the few”.