The Conversation (0)
Greg Evans
Jun 14, 2019
Tory leadership candidate Dominic Raab managed to get through to the next round of the contest after receiving 27 votes from his colleagues.
This puts him behind the likes of Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson in the race but he will surely be hoping that his new campaign video will win over a few more Tory MPs.
In the clip, the former Brexit secretary meets up with several people from an unspecified area of Wales where he outlines his plans for Brexit and how he intends to get the UK out of the EU by the end of October.
During the two minute video, he tells a group of farmers:
I'd like to go back to Brussels and say, look, there is an exit from the backstop, or alternative arrangements we can work.
But as they're signalling that they won't change anything, then I would lead us out at the end of October with a WTO deal.Â
Ahhh...the old WTO Brexit which nobody and we mean nobody has been able to make a justifiable case for. Needless to say, this was one of the biggest things that Raab was called out for in the video.
Before all that he asked the farmers what makes 'Welsh lamb the best?' which is a perfectly reasonable question to ask if you enjoy that particular type of meat but it's probably not the best subject to talk about in the terms of a Brexit video.
In a Twitter thread, writer Ben Kelly explained to Raab how a no-deal Brexit would severely harm the Welsh lamb industry.
Later in the video, Raab also makes comments about the BBC EU documentary 'Brexit Behind Closed Doors' which covered the period where he was the Brexit secretary. He says:
I don't know whether any of you have seen the 'Behind Closed Doors' documentary from the BBC on Brexit negotiations from the EU side. And they've been having a good old moan about me.
They complained that I turned up every week to negotiate. They complained I pushed too hard and in fact said things to them that no else had dared say before. I only asked where the coffee machine was.
We really hope that wasn't the only question that you asked the EU when you were negotiating on the entire UK's behalf.
However, in the actual clip, Michel Barnier says this:
Now we are dealing with minister Dominic Raab, he comes every week. This many cause, and I', saying this cautiously, coordination problems with the British negotiation team where clearly they were in the habit of doing things differently.
On the issue with Ireland, there was a moment of extremely high tension when Raab said: ‘If you don’t accept our demands in the Chequers white paper, the UK-wide solution, the cherry-picking, then you are responsible for the disagreement, for no deal, and thus it is you who create borders, because we want to leave it as it is, without borders.
I stopped him there and told him very, very clearly: ‘Your Prime Minister Theresa May never dared say this to us, never. On the contrary, she confirmed that the UK is aware of the problems it creates by leaving the EU and the single market, that it is aware of its responsibility.
The idea that the creation of a border will be the fault of the Europeans is absolutely unacceptable for us. And if this is the British position, you better tell me straight away so I can inform the European Parliament and Council that discussions are over. Negotiations have failed.
He immediately took his words back, said that wasn’t what he meant. He is not always into nuances, Dominic Raab isn’t. But nuances are important in this discussion.
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