Tobias Ellwood has called on both the Tories and Labour to step up and admit that we need to rejoin the single market to secure Britain’s economic prosperity.
The Chairman of the Defence Select Committee called on the UK’s main two parities to “have that strength of character” and “the courage” to look at our biggest generational decision, “which has now clearly not gone in the right direction”.
He added that many MPs privately agree with the notion that Britain should secure a Norway-style relationship with the EU but are too scared to say so.
It comes as foreign secretary James Cleverly travelled out to Brussels for more peace talks following the Windsor Agreement.
He said the “level of trust” between him and European Commission diplomat Maros Sefcovic was part of the reason the Windsor Framework was secured.
“I’d like to say thanks for the spirit of friendship and cooperation that (Mr Sefcovic) brought into all our meetings and the level of trust that I was able to invest in our relationshp I think is part of the reason we got the Windsor Framework over the line,” he said.
“We have seen real progress and I am committed to maintaining that prositive trajectory.”
The speech to the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, a body created as part of the post-Brexit trade deal, comes as Rishi Sunak’s Government seeks better relations with the bloc.