Opponents accused the Prime Minister of inflaming divisions after he savaged them for surrendering to Brussels. Ministers condemned the outpouring of “confected” anger from the “outrage mob”. Mr Johnson refused to apologise and vowed to continue talking tough about a rebel law blocking a no-deal Brexit. But he called for tempers to come down after a torrid two days in Parliament. “I think it’s fair enough to call the surrender act what it is,” he told BBC South Today.
“I think it is absolutely reasonable. But we do need to bring people together and get this thing done.
“Tempers need to come down, and people need to come together because it’s only by getting Brexit done that you’ll lance the boil, as it were, of the current anxiety and we will be able to get on with the domestic agenda.”
Tory chairman James Cleverly warned MPs the “deeply uncomfortable” atmosphere will not lift until Brexit had been delivered.
“I don’t feel that Opposition parties are genuine about trying to resolve this issue,” he said.
Boris Johnson insisted he will not be silenced over Brexit (Image: GETTY)
Boris told the 1922 Committee he would not water down his attack on Brexit-blocking legislation (Image: GETTY)
In a private meeting with Tory MPs in Parliament Mr Johnson doubled down on his position, telling the backbench 1922 Committee he would not water down his attack on Brexit-blocking legislation.
Paul Scully, the party’s deputy chairman, below with Theresa May, said the atmosphere at the meeting had been “positive”.
He added: “At the end of the day the surrender act is literally a backbench MP who has written a letter to give to the UK prime minister, which gives the EU permission to tell us when we can leave the EU. By any dictionary definition, this surrenders power to the EU.”
Mr Johnson also faced criticism after telling MPs on Wednesday they should honour the memory of murdered parliamentarian Jo Cox by delivering Brexit.
Defence minister Johnny Mercer said the Prime Minister should have been “more sensitive” when speaking about Mrs Cox, who campaigned for Remain, but hit out at opposition MPs for “crying wolf” over the wider debate.
Speaker John Bercow (Image: Getty)
Paul Scully, the Tory party’s deputy chairman (Image: Getty)
He said: “The problem is that the selective outrage mob want it exclusively their way. Honestly? It’s all unnecessary, and I wish it wasn’t a feature of politics. But the reality is that your type and many MPs have stoked this fire for years, and cry wolf when it becomes a two-way street.
“To be completely clear my kids, wife and I are threatened regularly, BJ should have been more sensitive on Jo, but that aside the outrage is in my view confected from a political class totally devoid of the communities they claim to represent. Dark times. But we will get through.”
Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith yesterday said that Mr Johnson’s critics were trying to “stir this up”.
“I don’t think that what the Prime Minister said about the bill – and termed it a “surrender bill” – is in any way an incitement,” he said.
“It is a statement of fact because it would surrender rights to the European Union.
The UK is set to leave the EU on October 31 (Image: EXPRESS)
We didn’t want it, he doesn’t want it, but he is entitled to call it what he likes. It doesn’t incite anything else except debate.
“I think that those who want to try to stir this up are people who don’t want to have that debate.”
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said: “When Boris Johnson uses words like surrender and betrayal, he is right.”
Speaker John Bercow, below, described the furious Commons clashes when Parliament resumed on Wednesday as the worst he had seen and claimed the culture had become “toxic”.
He granted an urgent question on the Prime Minister’s use of language to Labour MP Jess Phillips, who called for Mr Johnson to apologise.
But she was immediately condemned by former Cabinet minister Maria Miller for “screaming the loudest” when the Prime Minister addressed MPs on Wednesday.
Phillips yesterday said a man was arrested after trying to “kick the door” down at her constituency office while shouting that she was a “fascist”.
The Birmingham Yardley MP said she would not “leap to blame Boris Johnson for this attack”.
James Cleverly, the Conservative MP for Braintree, is seen in Westminster (Image: Leon Neal/Getty)
Tory MP Bob Seely said he has been the victim of threats but does not “become a diva about it”.
“The last threat I received was last week,” he said. “I don’t make a song and dance about it. I don’t make out I’m a victim. I don’t use it for political capital.
“I make sure my staff are okay. We report it to the police, and we crack on. And I take it as part of the job that I don’t become a diva about it.”
Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin said that MPs should not use the murder of Jo Cox to “try and make political points”.
He said: “There is already a danger in these exchanges of it turning into a holier-than-thou competition.”
Cabinet Office minister Kevin Foster insisted the Government was working to create a safe environment for those in public life.
And he stressed that “no one is a traitor for saying what they believe”.
A number of Labour MPs have faced criticism for using inflammatory language since Jeremy Corbyn became leader.
But he weighed into the debate, accusing the PM of using “disgraceful” language.
“The language that politicians use matters and has real consequences,” he said.
“To dismiss the concerns of members of the death threats they receive and to dismiss concerns that the language used by the Prime Minister is being repeated in those death threats is reprehensible.”
