Arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed Theresa May is abandoning the Conservative Party by moving towards a softer Brexit.
The European Research Group (ERG) chairman denied the Prime Minister had rejected him and his push for a hard Brexit.
Instead Mr Rees-Mogg said the PM was cutting herself off from the bulk of her voters, which he said was “not very clever politics”.
When asked by BBC World At One if he had been rejected by the Prime Minister, he said: “If that’s right the Prime Minister is cutting herself off not from me but 70% of Conservative voters, according to opinion polls, and an even higher percentage of Conservative members.
“It doesn’t seem to be very clever politics to alienate the bulk of your party to keep happy a few people who have never accepted the referendum result, and have spent their lifetime committed to the European project.
“If that’s true it’s not that I am being abandoned, it’s that the Conservative Party is being abandoned.”
Requesting a longer extension was a “symbol of failure rather than success”, said Mr Rees-Mogg who is deeply opposed to any delay to Brexit.
He said: “I think it’s bad practice to have a second referendum before you have delivered on the first and I think the British people would feel that was an affront to the nation to be treated in such a scurvy way.”
He said he voted for Mrs May’s “deeply unsatisfactory” deal in order to keep Brexit alive but, once she steps down as she has pledged to do if Conservative MPs will back her Withdrawal Agreement, any successor would be free to rip up her deal.
Mr Rees-Mogg also warned that if the extension led to UK participation in EU elections, Mrs May risked sending extremists to Brussels.
He added: “We’ve been very lucky in this country not to have extreme politics and we want to continue with that, and there is a significant risk this mismanagement of Brexit is giving fuel to the extreme left and the extreme right.”
Earlier today the hard Brexiteer was slapped down by Brussels over comments he made about
Brussels issued a stinging slapdown to leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees Mogg after he said British MEPs cause chaos if there’s a long Brexit extension.
The chair of the European Research Group of Tory MPs, said that “if a long extension leaves us stuck in the EU we should be as difficult as possible”.
He suggested: “We could veto any increase in the budget, obstruct the putative EU army and block Mr Macron’s integrationist schemes”.
The Prime Minister told the EU that the UK is making preparations for the European Parliament in a letter asking for an extension until June 30.
A spokesperson for the European Commission suggested that the Tory MP was irrelevant.
“This gentleman is not our interlocutor and I would say then that the principle of sincere cooperation does apply, as prime minister May herself makes clear in her letter,” the spokesperson told reporters in Brussels.
“I would also say that this is a hypothetical question because it supposes, or presupposed an extension, which is yet to be seen by our leaders.”
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, also said: “For those in the EU who may be tempted to further extend the Brexit saga, I can only say, be careful what you wish for.”
