Theresa May’s anti-Brexit former education secretary has slammed the Prime Minister’s Brexit proposals as “the worst of both worlds” and called for another referendum so Brexit can be blocked.
Tory MP Justine Greening described Mrs May’s plan as “a fudge” and claimed a second vote on European Union (EU) membership would end the dispute between “deadlocked politicians” in a column for The Times.
Speaking on BBC news, she added that it was “not a workable proposition” and said the plan did not “deliver a clean break” that many people voted for and predicted Parliament will vote against Mrs May’s proposals.
“These are desperate times for our weak Prime Minister, and opportunists in her party such as Greening will use any opportunities to cast themselves as the solution for their failing party,” blasted UKIP in a statement.
They described her intervention as “nothing more than a former Tory Minister attempting to raise her profile in the event of a challenge to Theresa May’s leadership”.
The party added: “By calling the Chequers agreement ‘a fudge’ Greening is appropriating the language of UKIP in order to make her sound like a committed Brexiteer when in reality she is a stone cold Remainer.
“The Conservatives fooled the public into believing that they had the will to carry out Brexit, but this dishonesty will never work again.”
Gerard Batten MEP, the leader of UKIP, said: “There was never going to be a ‘good deal’.
“The EU doesn’t want us to leave so why would they offer one? There’s 3 options: don’t leave; accept a ‘leaving in name only’ deal; or just leave & then tell the EU how it works. Let’s just leave!”
The development comes the day after David Davis, who resigned as Brexit secretary in protest of Mrs May’s Brexit plans, said people in government were “astonishingly dishonest” for claiming that there is no alternative to the plan.
“As President Trump’s intervention last week showed, the harmonisation of our regulations with the EU will radically reduce the sort of trade deal we could do with America, and many of our other prospective trading partners,” he wrote in The Sunday Times.
Tory Witney MP Robert Courts resigned as a parliamentary aide Sunday night in protest at the PM’s Chequers plan, and on Monday morning, Scott Mann, the MP for North Cornwall, also stepped down.
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