‘Huge act of self harm’: Gordon Brown says government must drop ‘ideology’ to save Brexit talks with EU

Gordon Brown has labelled the government’s plan to flout international law to override the Brexit withdrawal agreement a “huge act of self harm”, as he urged Boris Johnson to put aside ideology to save negotiations with the EU.

The former Labour prime minister’s comments came as tensions between London and Brussels reached boiling point over Downing Street’s incendiary act to introduce legislation next week to disapply key aspects of the Brexit agreement in the event of trade talks collapsing.

And Dublin lashed out at the plans, which Europe minister Thomas Byrne said would “put at serious risk the basis of the peace on the island of Ireland.”

But Brexiteers piled pressure on Mr Johnson to stand firm, with Tory backbencher Steve Baker saying the UK should now “repudiate the whole treaty on the basis of the EU’s bad faith.”

Following emergency talks on Wednesday, the European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic said Mr Johnson’s move had “seriously damaged trust” and set a 20-day deadline for No 10 to drop the Internal Markets Bill or face legal action from the bloc.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Byrne said the UK’s action was “a totally unacceptable way to do business … a unilateral provocative act”.Mr Brown described the government’s approach as a “huge act of self harm”, he added: “We knew there was a debate over fishing and state aid, but then to explode the argument into breaking an international treaty has been condemned by so many people.

Backing Mr Sefcovic’s demand for Mr Johnson to withdraw the law-breaking measures, the Irish Europe minister said: “It is completely wrong to say that this is to protect the Good Friday Agreement. In fact, the opposite is the case.  “What they propose to do is put at serious risk the basis of the peace on the island of Ireland and the basis of our trade, and unfettered trade, cross-border in goods, which is absolutely essential for that peace.”

Mr Brown told Today the government’s approach was a “huge act of self harm”, adding: “We knew there was a debate over fishing and state aid, but then to explode the argument into breaking an international treaty has been condemned by so many people.

“Look, if I had done that when I was prime minister the Conservatives would have accused of me breaching the rule of law, they would have thrown everything at us and said that you cannot ignore an international treaty that you signed only a few weeks ago and you negotiated.

“But I think this is part of a strategy that is going wrong on the part of the government. They think they will have a European Council meeting on 16 October and that they can persuade Angela Merkel to step in instead of [Michel] Barnier. They think they can tie up a deal because people will be desperate.”

He added: “I would appeal to the government to be pragmatic and not ideological, to recognise that we do need a deal in the interest of our economy to understand that are programmes like Horizon, Erasmus, the European Investment Bank, the Green New Deal that even outside of the EU, for pragmatic and job-creating reasons, we should be part of.

“Bring back to the table a sense of what is in the interests of the British economy and the British people, not simply ideology.”

If Mr Johnson sticks to his proposals, the legislation will be introduced in the House of Commons next week, but reports suggest growing unrest among Conservative MPs dismayed at the government’s willingness to undermine Britain’s traditional support of the international rule of law.

According to The Times, up to 30 Tory MPs are prepared to break the whip next week and table an amendment to the government’s plans which aims to block No 10 from overriding the the Brexit withdrawal agreement without parliament’s support.