The war of words between Theresa May and Boris Johnson escalated Monday with the prime minister’s official spokesman slapping down the former foreign secretary’s ideas as not “serious.”
In response to Johnson’s Daily Telegraph column rubbishing May’s Chequers Brexit plan, the PM’s official spokesman said: “Boris Johnson resigned over Chequers. There are no new ideas in this article to respond to.”
He added: “What we need at this time is serious leadership with a serious plan and that’s exactly what the country has with this prime minister and this Brexit plan.”
Johnson had launched a blistering attack on May’s Brexit plan, branding it a “disaster” and claiming U.K. negotiators had so far achieved “two thirds of diddly squat.”
For the second time in a week, he used his weekly Daily Telegraph column to lay into the U.K. negotiating stance agreed in July at the prime minister’s Chequers country retreat. He and other Brexiteers are piling pressure on the government to drop the Chequers plan — a move that would likely mean May would have to resign.
He wrote: “I am afraid, the inevitable outcome is a victory for the EU, with the UK lying flat on the canvas with 12 stars circling symbolically over our semi-conscious head.”
He added: “The reality is that in this negotiation the EU has so far taken every important trick. The UK has agreed to hand over £40 billion of taxpayers’ money for two thirds of diddly squat.”