Britain has "gone into battle with the white flag fluttering over our leading tank," Boris Johnson writes in an opinion piece for The Telegraph.
"The fix is in. The whole thing is about as pre-ordained as a bout between Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy; and in this case, I am afraid, the inevitable outcome is a victory for the EU, with the UK lying flat on the canvas and 12 stars circling symbolically over our semi-conscious head," he writes, comparing negotiations between UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier to a rigged wrestling match.
In his Monday piece, the former foreign secretary blasted Prime Minister Theresa May's compromise Brexit plan, known commonly as Chequers. According to the Independent, the article can be "seen by many at Westminster" as the first step in the campaign to oust Theresa May from the position of Prime Minister.
The real "scandal" is "not that we have failed, but that we have not even tried" on Brexit, he writes.
The article comes as Prime Minister May has been facing growing opposition from Tories over the Chequers plan on Brexit. Later this week, the Parliament will return from recess, and the Tories are expected to launch a new coordinated attack on the Prime Minister to force her to abandon the compromise exit strategy.
"They may puff about ‘cherry-picking' the single market," Johnson writes, referring to Barnier's February remark that the EU cannot allow the UK to pick its perks while leaving the EU. "There may be some confected groaning and twanging of leotards when it comes to the discussion on free movement. But the reality is that in this negotiation the EU has so far taken every important trick. The UK has agreed to hand over £40bn of taxpayers' money for two-thirds of diddly squat."
"We will remain in the EU taxi; but this time locked in the boot, with absolutely no say on the destination. We won't have taken back control — we will have lost control," he continued.
In his interview for BBC, International trade secretary Liam Fox also blasted May's gloomy 15-year predictions of the UK's GDP.
"Can you think back in all your time in politics where the Treasury have made predictions that were correct 15 years out, I can't, they didn't predict the financial crisis that happened, no-one could," he said. "To say what a GDP figure would be 15 years ahead is not a predictive power that I've known the Treasury to have in my time in politics… I don't believe it is possible to have a 15-year time horizon on predictions on GDP."
