Boris Johnson will declare “economic war” on Brussels within minutes of entering Number 10, Gordon Brown has warned.
The former PM said Johnson would “run up against a brick wall” when he pitches his Brexit plan to world leaders.
He said: “He’ll walk into this very small office that the PM occupies, next to the cabinet room, and he’ll sit down and think: “Well that’s been a pretty good day for me.”
“This is where the good news for him ends. Because there is a list of calls that every Prime Minister makes when they take office.”
Mr Brown said Mr Johnson will tell European leaders Britain will reject any offer of a Brexit delay, that he has insisted every member of his cabinet has signed up to a no-deal Brexit and that he will refuse to pay the divorce agreement.
He said: “It’s the economic equivalent of a declaration of war. We are not going to pay our bills, that’s what he’s said, unless we get what we want.”
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Mr Brown today backed a new campaign to oppose a no-deal Brexit, which he described as a “national fiasco” and the greatest “self-inflicted wound” in peacetime British history.
The campaign, launched by Hope Not Hate and the Institute for Public Policy Research warns crashing out of the EU without a deal will inflict fresh devastation on areas which can least afford it.
And the groups say it would fuel the far-right, providing new opportunities for extremists.
Speaking at the launch of the campaign, Mr Brown also warned Mr Johnson had so alienated the people of Scotland that he could become “the first Prime Minister of England rather than the 55th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”
The ex-Labour leader blasted Brexiteers for “hijacking patriotism”.
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He said: “You know what annoys me most? And what I think divides the country even more?
“It’s the claim that is made by Nigel Farage and by Boris Johnson that a no-deal Brexit is the ultimate patriotic act. To get out by October 31 is an exercise in Britain asserting itself.”
He added: “How can it be that an act of national economic self-harm, a self-inflicted wound, that is clearly counter to the national economic interest because of the impact on the economy and on the citizens of our country, can be described as a patriotic act? As something that if you don’t indulge in it, you are guilty of betraying Britain?
“It just shows you that there are two views of Britain competing against each other. And we must speak for the more progressive view of Britain that we hold.”
And he hit back at Mr Johnson for comparing Brexit to the space race to the Moon.
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He said: “When you think of the space race, and it’s 50 years since we arrived on the moon, there’s a different conclusion that I would draw.
“For 30 years we had a space race, then by the 1990s people decided that this fight between Russia and America and between prospective space powers like China and India would be to no avail.
“So we created an International Space Station.”
Mr Brown said the International Space Station (ISS) can only operate with the cooperation of the former space-race rivals, the United States and Russia, and 23 other countries.
“We have decided to replace conflict in space with cooperation,” he said.
