Peter Mandelson, the former European trade commissioner and senior minister in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, launched an aggressive tirade against Theresa Mays Brexit deal Sunday, calling for a second referendum on Britains EU membership.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Mandelson, a vocal supporter of the EU, said that Mays deal “would rob Britain of its sovereignty” — a criticism also leveled by many Brexit supporters — and “is not what anyone voted for in 2016.”
Mandelson said the deal is “a legal and political no mans land in which, desperate to maintain trade in goods, we would have to agree to follow EU rules with no say in making them,” causing “a life of never-ending dispute between Britain and the EU.”
He argued that a no-deal Brexit is also impractical because it would mean “wholesale reinvention of our economy.”
“MPs should refuse to be bullied into supporting something that is manifestly against Britains national interest and which they would quickly come to regret. The so-called Norway solution, which once seemed attractive, is simply a more institutionalized version of the same deal and would now be very difficult to negotiate,” Mandelson wrote.
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