Proper scorched earth stuff from Michael Heseltine, here. The senior Conservative peer and former front-bencher for Margaret Thatcher and John Major has made another major intervention on the topic of Brexit – almost 10 years after the UK voted to leave the EU.
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Michael Heseltine calls for reversal of Brexit
Writing in The Independent this weekend, Lord Heseltine insisted that the right thing to do for the country would be to rejoin the EU, and tear down ‘the barriers’ which are hampering international trade and services.
He outlined Brexit as a disastrous exercise, and one which badly impacted everything from manufacturing to artistic endeavour. Imploring the government to ‘ignore the extreme right’, Mr. Heseltine has asked Labour to consider going further in rebuilding bridges with the bloc.
“Brexit was a self-imposed disaster for this country. It erected barriers between our manufacturing and service industries and our largest market. In a range of cultural, artistic, environmental and academic policies. The public has been lied to, [in a] heinous crime.”
“Project Fear has become Project Here. We should reclaim our traditional role as a major European nation. We should do so in the interests of growing generations of our young people. We should do it in our interests as a nation state with limited resources.” | Michael Heseltine
‘Their promises have turned to dust and ashes’
The article was published at a time where new polling data shows a swelling appetite among the British public to scrap Brexit, and return to the pre-2016 status quo. In a recent survey, almost half of those asked said they wanted a second referendum to take place.
Heseltine’s criticism of Brexit is scathing, labelling it a ‘con’ based on a ‘false prospectus’. However, he saved his most concentrated fury for the men who sold the lie – and criticised them for ‘going quiet’ on the matter because they haven’t been able to ‘execute what they lied about’.
“Never have so few done so much damage to so many with so little ability to execute what they lied about. Where are the paeans of praise to Brexit from Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Dominic Cummings and their accomplices for the land of milk and honey they told us it would deliver?”
“They don’t normally hold back from giving their opinions. The reason is obvious I would suggest: their scandalously false prospectus has turned to dust and ashes. They are the guilty men and should hang their heads in shame. It has all proved to be a con” | Michael Heseltine