BORIS Johnson is acting strangely and is “completely out of the loop” with regard to Britain’s position on Brexit, an EU commissioner has suggested.
Phil Hogan, the Irish Commissioner for Agriculture, said: “Clearly, he is not directly involved in the negotiations on behalf of the British Government with the EU. He certainly has made very strange statements that are completely contradictory and completely at odds with his own government’s position as well as the possibility of being reasonable with the EU in finalising a deal.
“So it strikes me that he is completely out of the loop in relation to the type of concrete proposals that are required and that are being considered by the UK Government,” he told the London Evening Standard.
Mr Hogan, described the Foreign Secretary as not not having a good reputation and who was a “diminished figure in the Government”.
Referring to Mr Johnson’s controversial article on Brexit, the commissioner said: “It’s amazing that the UK’s Foreign Secretary can publish a 4,000-word article about the UK’s Brexit future and not mention the Irish border.
“You’d think that the Foreign Secretary would have ideas about how to manage the UK’s main land border with the European Union but obviously not.”
Mr Hogan added that the “signs will not be good” for future EU relations if Theresa May was as “vague” as her Foreign Secretary on key questions such as the Irish border.
The commissioner’s broadside came as Tory grandee Norman Tebbit criticised Theresa May’s leadership as “not well-organised” as the threat of an imminent resignation by Mr Johnson over Brexit receded.
And it came as reports suggested Oliver Robbins, the Prime Minister’s new leading adviser on Brexit, had contacted EU counterparts to say that Mrs May’s keynote speech in Florence on Friday would contain an offer of at least £20 billion to ease Britain’s access to the single market during the planned transition period.
The Foreign Secretary dismissed as a “snore-athon” the row over his 4,000-word article on EU withdrawal, which led to charges of disloyalty from senior colleagues; coming as it did just days before the Prime Minister’s keynote speech on Brexit in Florence on Friday.
Lord Tebbit noted how Mrs May's Cabinet was "particularly vulnerable at a time when the biggest issue in politics is…Brexit". But he dismissed the likelihood of Mr Johnson becoming prime minister in the future, claiming: "He couldn't demand loyalty from his colleagues."
After private talks, it seems the Secretary of State has backed off from any threat of resigning in the coming days over a fear that the PM was intent on seeking a soft “Swiss-style” exit from the EU.
Mr Johnson now appears to have accepted a compromise where Britain “pays its dues” during a transition period, post Brexit in March 2019, as well as meeting financial demands "where our lawyers say we are on the hook for stuff".
Asked about the Tory row, he told The Guardian: “I am mystified by all this stuff. Not me, guv. I don’t know where it is coming from, honestly. It feels to me like an attempt to keep the great snore-athon story about my article running. That is what is going on.”
Speaking from New York ahead of tomorrow’s special Cabinet session on Brexit, the Foreign Secretary said: “I am confident the PM will set out an exciting and positive vision for Brexit and it will be a speech around which everyone can unite.”
He explained that he did not see his article as a challenge to Mrs May’s authority but, rather, a response to those who had said he had not set out a distinctive foreign policy on the issue at a time of great political turbulence.
“Everyone who had previously accused me of saying too little are now saying I am saying rather too much. People have got to make up their minds. What do they want? What I want from my critics is some bloody consistency; the great inveterate jalopies.”
In an interview with Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 live with Emma Barnett Lord Tebbit spoke of the vulnerability of the Tory Government given that after the snap election it lost its slim majority.
"What is wrong is that there was not an agreed line, which had been endorsed at the Cabinet, having been fully discussed in a Cabinet committee, on what people should be saying. If there is a songsheet, then you expect everyone to sing from it. But if there is not a songsheet, then people sing their own songs.”
He stressed: “The leadership is not well-organised; that's the thing."
The former Tory Party Chairman said it was time for Mrs May's government to "coalesce and get themselves better organised".
He added: "I do not believe that there is a serious mood amongst the sensible politicians in the Conservative Party to overthrow Mrs May. We want her to get on with her colleagues and with the process of restoring freedom to the British people."
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