Brexit compared to appeasing the Nazis by Labour peer Lord Andrew Adonis

'I think we’re in serious danger of getting it wrong in the way that we leave the EU'

Lord Adonis (Getty Images/Oli Scarff )

A senior government adviser is facing calls for his sacking after comparing hard Brexit to appeasing the Nazis in the 1930s.

Lord Andrew Adonis, the Labour peer and ex-minister who now chairs the Government's National Infrastructure Commission, said Britain is in "serious danger" of getting Brexit wrong and his party should push to stay in the EU single market.

“My language is usually pretty subdued in politics," he told The House magazine. "But for anyone with a historical sense – and I’m a historian – recognises that leaving the economic institutions of the European Union, which have guided our destiny as a trading nation for half a century, is a very big step and the importance can’t be overemphasised.

"To my mind, it’s as big a step that we’re taking as a country as decolonisation in the 1950s and 60s and appeasement in the 1930s. We got it right on decolonisation; we got it wrong on appeasement and I think we’re in serious danger of getting it wrong in the way that we leave the EU."

He added: “If we can’t have our cake and eat it then we face a serious relative decline in our living standards compared with France and Germany and I don’t believe the British people will put up with that. So we would, in that event, I believe face a crisis. It may be a crisis played out over quite a number of years – which, after all, is what happened with appeasement – but there will be a crisis.”

Standing by his remarks in a separate interview with the BBC, he said if the country was to do a hard Brexit, "then I do believe this will be the worst mistake this country has made since the 1930s."

Conservative MPs responded by calling for the former Labour transport secretary's dismissal. Former Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith said he was “astonished and appalled”, and found the comments “deeply offensive.”

Peter Bone, the Conservative MP for Wellingborough told The Sun Lord Adonis should be “fired” and Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire said he should be removed “from any advisory role to government.”

His view appears to be in line with the majority of those in the UK. Research by King’s College London, Rand Europe and Cambridge University found that people were more concerned with trade deals with EU and foreign countries than they were on limiting free movement of labour.

Opinion on the single market is divided in the Commons. Labour MP Stephen Kinnock told The Daily Telegraph that at least 15 Conservative MPs are in talks with to prevent a hard Brexit, meaning the Prime Minister’s working parliamentary majority of 12 could be defeated.

Lord Adonis said it was “only a matter of time” before Jeremy Corbyn backs the single market.

However, the Labour leader recently sacked three shadow ministers who wanted to amend the Queen’s Speech to reflect support for keeping Britain in it.

But in a briefing to journalists, the Prime Minister’s spokeswoman refused calls from her colleagues to sack Lord Adonis despite “completely disagreeing” with his comments on Brexit. The spokeswoman added: “Andrew Adonis is not a member of the Government, it’s for him to explain his remarks but the PM as you can imagine disagrees with them.

“He’s not a Conservative peer, his job is to provide independent advice to the Government on infrastructure. It doesn’t have anything to do with the views he expressed on Brexit today. She completely disagrees with those views.”

Asked why the PM sacked Lord Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister, for his outspoken intervention on Brexit, the spokeswoman added: “It’s not comparable. Lord Heseltine is a Conservative peer. Lord Adonis is not a Conservative peer, he is not a member of the Government. He provides advice to the Government on infrastructure.

In March, Lord Heseltine was sacked from five roles as a Government adviser after rebelling on a parliamentary vote in the Lords on Brexit. At the time, he said “sometimes in politics there are issues which transcend party politics”.