British Prime Minister Theresa May has adopted a plan for Brexit negotiations that has the United Kingdom “truly headed for the status of colony,” her outgoing foreign secretary wrote in his resignation letter.
“It is more than two years since the British people voted to leave the European Union on an unambiguous and categorical promise that if they did so they would be taking back control of their democracy,” Boris Johnson, who served as the U.K.’s top diplomat in May’s government after leading the political movement to leave the European Union, wrote in his resignation letter.
“That dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt,” he added.
Johnson’s resignation threatens to crack May’s governing coalition, just days after her Cabinet agreed on the broad outlines of a proposal to break an impasse in U.K.-EU negotiations over the future of the relationship between the two sides. His departure exposed her to mockery from Labour Party opponents and a potential insurgency from Conservative Party allies on her right.
“What we are proposing is challenging for the EU,” May said. “It requires them to think again, to look beyond the positions they’ve taken so far, and agree [to] a new and fair balance of rights and obligations. Because that is the only way to meet our commitments to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, without damaging the constitutional integrity of the U.K., while respecting the result of the referendum.”
Johnson scoffed at such characterizations, arguing that the proposal compromised too much in advance of the talks. “It now seems that the opening bid for our negotiations involves accepting that we are not actually going to be able to make our own laws,” he wrote.
He argued that her plan amounted to a “semi-Brexit” that would leave the U.K. beholden to the European Union’s economic regulations, while British authorities would have less influence than ever over those policies due to their departure from the bloc.
“What is even more disturbing is this is our opening bid,” Johnson added. “It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them.”
