The ousting of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister will not result in the government backtracking on Brexit, two Tory politicians told Breitbart London in the wake of his resignation.
Amid clamouring from Remainers and Europhiles for the United Kingdom to rejoin the European Union, or at least the EU Single Market, and with several of the leading figures vying to replace Boris Johnson, including Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Tugendhat and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, voting Remain in the 2016 referendum, the future of the Brexit project seems unclear.
However, Conservative MP and staunch Brexiteer Tim Loughton told Breitbart London that the country is no longer in a “Leave or Remain environment”.
“Brexit is secure, even the Labour Party effectively had to say that. There are ongoing practical problems around Northern Ireland which still need to be resolved, all of us in our party acknowledge that has to be resolved.”
Mr Loughton, who first called on the PM to resign in January amid the ‘partygate’ scandal and stood up in Parliament against Boris Johnson in the final Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) prior to his resignation, said that the removal of Johnson was not about policy.
“It’s just purely about the leadership of… the person whose name is over the door at Number 10, now that is about to be resolved and we can get back to the business of governing and get back to the policies, of which there are many, we need to get on with.”
Kurt Zindulka / Breitbart NewsNevertheless, there are establishment figures in both Britain and Brussels who have hailed the downfall of Boris Johnson as signalling the end of the populist Brexit movement, which Johnson campaigned for in 2016.
Fervent Europhile Michael Heseltine said this week that “if Boris goes, Brexit goes,” for example.
“Now, of course, the Tory party is going to have to find a new leader. My belief is that there will be a return to sanity towards our policies about Europe which will make Keir Starmer look, I think, rather foolish,” said the Margaret Thatcher regicide, in reference to the leader of the Labour Party promising to not relitigate Brexit should he attain power.
Pro-EU voices on the continent also hailed the end of Johnson’s administration as a potential opportunity for EU-UK relations to be mended, though that most likely means they hope that the British government will bend to the will of Brussels.
The bloc’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said he is hoping for “a new page in relations” with Britain and that there is “so much more to be done together.”
“May it be more constructive, more respectful of commitments made, in particular regarding peace [and] stability in [Northern Ireland], and more friendly with partners in [the European Union],” the French politician continued.
In an interview with Breitbart London, Conservative peer in the House of Lords and polling expert Robert Hayward said that he believes the next leader of the Tory Party will be a Brexiteer and that there was no chance of the United Kingdom rejoining the EU Single Market, as has been proposed by MPs such as Tobias Ellwood.
“It’s not a settled deal,” Hayward said in reference to the ongoing disputes over the Northern Ireland Protocol, but added that “Nobody is going to win the Tory leadership who actually wants to reinstate some form of Remain process.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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