Former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen has warned the government against betraying the result of the Brexit referendum
Former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen has warned the government against betraying the result of the historic Brexit vote.
In an outspoken interview, the former EU peace negotiator lambasted parliament for letting down the millions of people who voted for Brexit.
‘They [parliamentarians] have really managed to convince themselves that they are entitled in a strange way to thwart Brexit,’ the former SDP leader told the Daily Telegraph.
‘Parliament has to accept that it’s gone out of their hands. But they can’t accept it.’
He warned that the UK faced a ‘very, very serious political situation’ following the aftermath of the Prime Minister’s unpopular Chequers plan.
‘It’s no longer a matter of personal preference,’ he said.
‘It’s that Brexit is this mess, so we’ve got to short this damned thing out and fast.’
In an outspoken interview, the former EU peace negotiator (pictured) lambasted parliament for letting down the millions of people who voted for Brexit
He also said there would be dire consequences across the country if elitist politicians were seen to be ignoring the will of the people.
‘The mood in the Brexit cities and towns will start getting ugly,’ he said.
‘These people don’t believe a word their politicians say. There’s an elite and they’re just not listening.
‘The Leave voters were fully aware of the fact there would be some economic downsides. They were not voting for prosperity.
‘They were voting to have more control of their affairs and challenge London dominance.’
He warned that the UK faced a ‘very, very serious political situation’ following the aftermath of the Prime Minister’s unpopular Chequers plan (former cabinet pictured during discussions)
Once a committed Europhile, Lord Owen threw his support behind the Leave campaign after concluding that the EU was a failing institution.
From 1992-1995 he served as EU peace negotiator in the former Yugoslavia, but he is now fiercely critical of the way that both Brussels and the UK have handled the Brexit negotiations.
He said: ‘I knew the [European] Commission would never willingly let us out and, within our own Parliament, people are determined to block the whole process.
‘They lie through their teeth, saying it’s this problem or that, but really they just don’t want to leave.’
The former foreign secretary said it was a ‘great, great shame’ that the Prime Minister was not a ‘Leaver’, adding that any Tory MPs who fall in with May’s Chequers plan ‘ought to fear the wrath of the electorate and of their own Tory Party members’.
Prime Minister Theresa May is pictured leaving Downing Street this week as Brexit tensions rise