Boris Johnson was left sporting a more blank expression than usual after he failed to get the crowd response he wanted during a London conference today.
The former prime minister used a combative speech in Westminster to hit out at Rishi Sunak’s deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol – before admitting shortcomings with his own agreement.
“I’m going to find it very difficult to vote for something like this myself, because I believed we should’ve done something very different. No matter how much plaster came off the ceiling in Brussels,” he said.
“I hope that it will work and I also hope that if it doesn’t work we will have the guts to employ that Bill again, because I have no doubt at all that that is what brought the EU to negotiate seriously.”
Later on, the audience was asked to raise their hands if they thought Brexit was a good idea, but it drew a largely blank response.
Johnson said: “I got the feeling that might be the case as we went along, but I’m undaunted.”
He tried to move quickly on, and said: “The problem at the moment, it’s about what we’re not getting right now.
“I’ve said this before, it’s a Brexit government or it’s nothing.
“We got a massive mandate to change, people wanted change in their lives, people wanted to see things done differently, and I’ve got to put my hands up for this as much as anybody, we haven’t done enough yet to convince them.
“That it can deliver the changes they do want to see, I think they are particularly dismayed about the small boats crossing the channel and they also don’t feel the economic change.
“We’ve got to break out of the model that we’re in.”
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