My Brexit deal was better than Boris Johnson’s, says Theresa May

Ex-PM claims ‘fallacy’ to say she wanted hard Brexit – as she pushes Sunak to go ‘full throttle’ on net zero

Theresa May has said the UK would have been better off under her Brexit deal than the one eventually struck by Boris Johnson.

The former Tory PM – booted out over her failure to get a Brexit deal through parliament – has defended her handling of the UK’s EU exit as she promotes her new book.

Ms May claimed her plan was had some of the benefits of the EU single market – but was blocked in the Commons by “hardline” Brexiteers and Remainers.

“It wouldn’t have given either side 100% of what they wanted, but it would have given the country a better overall deal,” she told BBC’s Political Thinking podcast.

Ms May said it was a “fallacy” to say her plan amounted to a “hard” Brexit, because she was trying to keep some of the advantages of being inside the single market.

The former Tory leader said she “wanted to deliver a Brexit that recognised the concerns of the 48%”, adding: “And that was the deal I believe I negotiated.”

MPs rejected Ms May’s withdrawal agreement three times in historic votes in parliament, and her government’s last-ditch efforts to a compromise with Labour failed. Mr Johnson replaced her at No 10 in July 2019.

Ms May has attacked Mr Bercow, the former speaker who has spoken out against Brexit since leaving his role, for denying her a crucial vote at a time when the DUP in Northern Ireland were sympathetic to an agreement.

She also blamed the “disappointing” 2017 election result on Labour-voting Brexiteers and the fact that Jeremy Corbyn had not shown “quite sufficient negativity to Brexit” to persuade the red wall to switch to the Tories.

Theresa May announced her resignation in May 2019 (PA)

Discussing her book The Abuse of Power: Confronting Injustice in Public Life, Ms May criticised Mr Johnson over the Partygate scandal – arguing it had helped shatter public trust in politicians.

“I remember on was saying to me she had been able to be with her father when he died, then they saw these things happening in No 10,” she said.

Ms May added: “And it was that sense from the public that it was one rule for the public, and one rule for the politicians, that I think was damaging.”

She denied her book’s title was about Mr Johnson. Pushed several times that the abuse of power she referred to included Mr Johnson, she laughed and declined to answer.

Boris Johnson outlasted Theresa May as prime minister (PA Archive)

Ms May refused to criticise Rishi Sunak, but said the government should be going “full throttle” on the net zero climate target – will requires the UK to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 – which was passed into law in 2019.

Asked about Mr Sunak’s recent emphasis on cost of living concerns in his approach to cutting carbon emissions, Ms May said: “I put it in a slightly different way but it’s the same theme,” adding that “we have to take people along with us”.

“If we shake our fingers at people and say you can never fly again, you can never drive a car again, you can never eat meat again, we’re never going to get where we need to be because people are just going to say, ‘No, hang on a minute, no, that’s not me’.”

The former PM added: “As Rishi says, he wants it to be about jobs. He wants it to be about economic growth. I think it really can be. And I want to see the government coming full throttle behind that.”

Ms May also said she would not have used Suella Braverman’s language of calling migrants an “invasion”. The former PM raised concerns about Ms Braverman likening the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats to an “invasion on our southern coast”.

Asked about the cabinet minister’s remarks on LBC, she said: “It is not the language that I would use. And I have made one or two points about some of the migration policies that have been brought up by the government.”