Sir Keir Starmer’s new unit to deepen ties with Brussels proves the Prime Minister took Brexit voters for fools during the election, Boris Johnson has said.
The former prime minister said Labour had “taken power by deception” by not saying it wanted closer ties with the EU.
He said Sir Keir had no mandate to set up the new team, which he branded a “Whitehall Surrender Squad”, and claimed the Prime Minister had “lied” during the campaign.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Mr Johnson said: “At a time when Starmer and Rachel Reeves have already managed to kill economic growth with their disastrous tax-hiking budget, this EU renegotiation is taking Britain in completely the wrong direction.
“Above all, Starmer has no mandate to do it. He has no mandate to set up the Whitehall Surrender Squad, and no mandate for these talks, any more than he had a mandate for tax rises. He lied about both.
“Labour has taken power by deception. We must of course respect the law and the constitution.
“But I call on everyone who cares about democracy – and the economic salvation of this country – to fight, fight and fight again for the freedoms the people voted for in 2016, and which they believed were secure.”
Expected to demand free movement
The Government has set up a special unit with 100 staff to renegotiate relations with the EU.
Brussels is expected to demand free movement for young people, access to British fishing waters and closer alignment with EU rules in return for closer trade ties.
Mr Johnson said it would turn Britain into a “colony, a vassal state, the orange ball-chewing gimp of Brussels”.
He said it would lead to the UK handing back control over its fishing industries.
“There are plenty of reasons to be appalled by the news that Keir Starmer is about to break his word to the people, and take this country back into the clammy grip of the EU,” he said.
“There is the sheer duplicity of the man, the bare-faced lies he told us all at the time of the election in July.
“He said that he was going to respect the voters and that there would be no going back on the Brexit referendum.
“He was categorical about what this meant: no going back into the single market or customs union, and no return to free movement for nationals from the EU.
“Perhaps we were mad to believe him.”
