Tories have reacted with fury to the Luxembourg prime minister’s decision to go ahead with a press conference after Boris Johnson pulled out, leaving an empty podium.
Amid chants from anti-Brexit protesters, Xavier Bettel lashed out at past claims made by his UK counterpart and warned him that that the “clock is ticking”, adding on Monday: “Stop speaking and act.”
His actions were derided as “very poor behaviour” by Sir Nicholas Soames. The independent MP, who Mr Johnson stripped of the Conservative whip earlier this month, called Mr Bettel a “show-off” and said the press conference was “unhelpful grandstanding”.
Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith dredged up memories of the Second World War, saying: “The irony is that Luxembourg was saved by Britain. National leaders should always treat one another with courtesy and civility. Good ones do.”
And Nigel Evans, the joint secretary of the backbench 1922 committee, said Mr Bettel’s stunt was “another reason why the British people voted the way we did”.
Mr Bettel claimed during his emotional solo address that the future of citizens across the EU was being held hostage for “party political gains”, and said Mr Johnson had not put forward any new proposals for a revised withdrawal agreement.
“We won’t accept any agreement that goes against a single market, who will be against the Good Friday Agreement,” he told reporters.
While one leading Tory MP, the former defence minister Tobias Ellwood, conceded that Mr Bettel’s frustration with Brexit wrangling was widely felt on both sides of the Channel, he said Mr Johnson had been right to pull out of the press conference.
“You saw the atmosphere outside the meeting. It is the not the appropriate place to do it and I am sorry the choreography wasn’t better handled,” he said.
But others were more forthright in criticising Mr Bettel.
Daniel Kawczynski, the pro-Brexit Conservative, said the scenes underlined the need for Britain to extricate itself from the “artificial arrogant EU structure” as quickly as possible.
Former Brexit minister David Jones tweeted: “I have no doubt that very many Luxembourgers are dismayed by their prime minister’s extraordinary behaviour.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
