Boris Johnson urges Theresa May to ditch Brexit plans and deliver Global Britain

Updated

Boris Johnson has issued a call for Theresa May to tear up her "miserable" plans for close relations with the European Union after Brexit and return to the "glorious vision" of Global Britain which she set out last year.

In a highly-charged personal statement to the House of Commons following his resignation as foreign secretary, Mr Johnson did not make a direct challenge to Mrs May's position as Prime Minister and Conservative leader.

But he denounced the plan agreed at Chequers and set out in the PM's white paper last week as a "Brexit in name only" which would leave the UK in a state of "vassalage".

And he left no doubt of his intention to put himself at the head of Tory backbench forces demanding a return to Mrs May's original red lines of total withdrawal from the customs union and single market in order to allow Britain the unfettered ability to forge trade deals around the world.

Accusing the Government of "dithering" over its Brexit negotiations, he said that a "fog of self-doubt" had descended on Mrs May's stance to EU withdrawal since she first set it out in a speech at Lancaster House last year.

In a 12-minute statement, he said: "It is not too late to save Brexit.

"We have time in these negotiations.

"We have changed tack once and we can change again.

"The problem is not that we have failed to make the case for a free trade agreement of the kind spelt out at Lancaster House.

"We haven't even tried.

"We must try now because we will not get another chance to do it right."

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