'Tragic illusion' to think can remedy Brexit deal with future relationship - Johnson
Boris Johnson speaks at the Conservative Home fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Britain, October 2, 2018. REUTERS/Darren Staples
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May’s suggestion that issues with the Brexit deal can be remedied in talks over its future ties with the bloc are “a tragic illusion” or “an attempt at deception”, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said.
In an interview on Sunday, May emphasised that the outline agreement on Britain’s future relationship with the bloc was still being negotiated and would deliver on the 2016 Brexit vote.
“Of all the lies that are currently being peddled, the worst is that this agreement can somehow be remedied in the next stage of the talks. I have heard it said that this is like a football match, in which we are one-nil down at half-time, but as the Prime Minister suggested in her interview ... we can still pull it back and get the Brexit we want,” Johnson wrote in his weekly column for Monday’s Daily Telegraph.
“I am afraid this is either a tragic illusion or an attempt at deception ... we are about to give the EU the right to veto our departure from the customs union.”
Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Peter Cooney
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