Boris Johnson has admitted he believes Britain is destined for a ‘semi-Brexit’ and said the Brexit ‘dream is dying’ in his resignation letter. The former foreign secretary stood down from his position, less than 24 hours after David Davis resigned as Brexit secretary. The key Cabinet resignations come just days after Theresa May secured a hard-won agreement from senior ministers on an EU exit strategy.
In his letter to Theresa May, Mr Johnson wrote: ‘(The Brexit) dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt. ‘We have postponed crucial decisions – including the preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November – with the result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system.’
Both Mr Johnson and Mr Davis agreed to the prime minister’s plan despite expressing their reservations privately. The former foreign secretary even referred to it as ‘polishing a turd’. In his resignation letter, he warned that Britain would take on ‘the status of a colony’ under the plans.
Speculation about Mr Johnson’s future had grown when he failed to attend a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergencies committee earlier on Monday. He had also been due to attend the Western Balkans Summit in London’s Docklands on Monday afternoon and to give a press conference at 5pm, but failed to appear.
Metro