LONDON – Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson laid down four demands Saturday in what his second controversial Brexit intervention within days.
Elsewhere, a group of leading Conservatives urged Prime Minister Theresa May to walk away from Brexit talks altogether if European Union negotiators fail to start talks on a future trade deal by Christmas.
The moves, widely reported in Britain’s Saturday morning national newspapers, came as thousands of Conservatives started to converge on Manchester for the party’s annual conference which starts Sunday.
May faced calls to fire Johnson after his controversial intervention with an article he penned just before her keynote Brexit speech in Florence.
In his latest intervention, Johnson has laid out what are four red-lines for Brexit. He has told the tabloid Sun newspaper a Brexit transition period must be a maximum of two years, not a second more. He also said Britain must refuse to accept new EU or ECJ (European Court of Justice) rulings during a transition period.
Johnson also said there should be no payments for single market access when the transition ends, and Britain must not agree to shadow EU rules to gain access to its market.
He said in an interview with the newspaper’s respected political editor Tom Newton-Dunn: “When it comes to paying for access to the market, that won’t happen any more than we would expect them to pay us for access to our market. There is no point in coming out of the EU and then remaining in rotational orbit around it. That is the worst of both worlds.”
Newton-Dunn said all of Johnson’s demands go further than the agreed position of May’s governing executive, her cabinet of ministers.
It now risks reopening the bitter feud among her senior ministers, commented Newton Dunn.
The Daily Telegraph said the Manchester conference is seen by many as a make-or-break moment for May’s hopes of leading the Conservatives for years to come, and is likely to be dominated by Brexit and the leadership question. The newspaper claimed May faces four separate rebellions on Brexit and domestic issues going into the four-day conference.
Meanwhile, the pressure group Leave Means Leave, which counts dozens of Conservative MPs among is supporters, published a letter to May Saturday,demanding Britain gives notice of its intention to leave the EU on World Trade Organisation terms in March 2019 if talks on a trade deal are not well underway by Christmas.
The MP David Jones, a former Brexit minister, and one of the signatories of the letter, told the Daily telegraph: “They (EU negotiators) are behaving really very badly, they are trying to hold us for ransom and we have to make it perfectly clear we are not prepared to be held to ransom.”
In an eve of conference message, May said: “As Conservatives, we have a vision of a country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few, precisely the direction I set when I became Prime Minister last year.
“I understand the concerns raised, particularly by young people, during what was a disappointing election for my party. So my determination to act on those concerns, and crucially, to fulfil the promise of my first speech on the steps of Downing Street, is greater than ever.”
On Britain’s future outside the EU, May said: “Yes, we have to get the best Brexit deal, but we must also take action here at home to make this a fairer place to live for ordinary working people.”
May will make a keynote speech next Wednesday on the final day of the party conference.
