A Downing Street spokeswoman has said Theresa May will not sack Labour peer Lord Adonis as a senior government adviser, despite him comparing leaving the EU to British appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s.
The spokeswoman said the prime minister “completely disagrees” with the comments by Lord Adonis, the former Labour transport secretary who chairs the government’s National Infrastructure Commission.
The peer said the UK was at risk of a serious decline in living standards. “Anyone with a historical sense – and I’m a historian – recognises that leaving the economic institutions of the European Union, which have guided our destiny as a trading nation for half a century, is a very big step and the importance can’t be over-emphasised,” he told the House magazine.
“To my mind, it’s as big a step that we’re taking as a country as decolonisation in the 1950s and 60s, and appeasement in the 1930s.”
“We got it right on decolonisation; we got it wrong on appeasement, and I think we’re in serious danger of getting it wrong in the way that we leave the EU.”
May’s spokeswoman said the comments were not a sackable offence given that Adonis was only an adviser, rather than a member of the government or a Conservative peer.
“He is not a member of the government. He is not a Conservative peer. His job is to provide independent advice to the government on infrastructure; that doesn’t have anything to do with the views he expressed on Brexit,” she said.
“She completely disagrees with those views. His views on Brexit have no bearing on the position that he holds. It is down to him to explain his views.”
In an interview on Friday, Adonis said he stood by the comments and said his party should back remaining in the single market and customs union. “The point I’m making is that it’s the worst economic mistake we will have made in this generation if we do leave and do a hard Brexit,” he said.
“My view is that the Labour Party should stand behind staying in the single market and the customs union – I’ve argued that in the House of Lords. I couldn’t have been clearer.”
Adonis said he believed it was a matter of time before the party had to change its position, which said would be “in line with the country”.
“There is no way that the Labour party, as the party representing the working people of this country, is going to take a position that sacrifices their jobs and makes them poorer, and if it were to take that position, and we were to do a hard Brexit, then I do believe this would be the worst mistake this country has made since appeasement in the 1930s and it will impoverish millions of working people,” he said.
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