George Osborne insists the General Election results mean “there is no majority in the House of Commons for a hard Brexit” – but campaigners familiar with the Tory and Labour Party manifestos have rubbished his claims.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who now edits the London Evening Standard for father-and-son oligarchs Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev, turned the Treasury into the engine of the Remain campaign’s Project Fear during the EU referendum – but was turfed out of office by Prime Minister Theresa May after the public backed Brexit.
Speaking to Andrew Marr on June 11th, the Bullingdon Club alumnus branded the Prime Minister a “dead woman walking” and suggested, like continuity Remain campaign Open Britain, that the Tories’ failure to secure a majority means there is no mandate for a Brexit deal which would take Britain out of the Single Market and Customs Union.
Observers such as Global Britain director Brian Monteith, however, told Breitbart London that the Remain campaign’s “Scaremonger-General” is clearly “still in denial”.
“Corbyn and [Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir] Starmer committed to ending Freedom of Movement – which means leaving the Single Market – so the mandate for a full Brexit which includes taking back control of our borders, our taxes, our fishing grounds and our laws remains intact,” he said.
Starmer did say that, “As it currently stands, membership of the Single Market is incompatible with our clarity about the fact that Freedom of Movement rules have to change” as recently as April 25th.
The Labour Party manifesto also promised “Freedom of Movement will end when we leave the European Union” in its section on immigration.
“The two main parties have manifesto commitments to Brexit and anti-Brexit parties did badly,” concurred John Longworth, chairman of Leave Means Leave and a former Director-General of the British Chambers of Commerce. The businessman described the characterisation of the election results as a public endorsement of “Soft Brexit” by George Osborne, Anna Soubry and others as “snake oil”.
The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party, the only two major parties to openly oppose Brexit, did indeed perform poorly.
Tim Farron’s party lost almost 50,000 total votes and ex-leader Nick Clegg, while the Scottish Nationalists lost almost half a million votes and around a third of its seats, including those belonging to ex-leader Alex Salmond and Westminster leader Angus Robertson.
Labour’s sister party in Ulster, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), also urged “Those who placed a Remain vote in ballot boxes last June [to] carry through with that decision and vote SDLP this June” – and was wiped off the electoral map on polling day.
Richard Tice, Leave Means Leave’s co-chairman and a founder the Leave.EU campaign, explained to Breitbart London that staying in the Single Market and Customs Union would be no Brexit at all, as Britain would remain unable to adequately control its borders or strike its own trade deals.
“Both main parties’ manifestos confirmed we must leave the Single Market,” emphasised Tice. “Osborne is indeed rewriting history.”
The Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Brexit Secretary in the House of Lords, Sarah Ludford, has also agreed that Corbyn’s promise to end Free Movement leaves Remainers hoping to use the election result to reverse of dilute Brexit with a problem.
“I want to know how Labour will get out of that Corbyn hole?” she asked her followers on Twitter.