The new foreign secretary claims he spoke about the potential of a “no-deal” Brexit during the referendum. The snag is nobody can find any evidence that he did.
In an interview on BBC’s Today Programme, Raab responded to questioning about the mandate for “no-deal” by saying: “We made clear, those in the campaign, that we should strive for a good deal but if that wasn’t available that we should go on and make a success of Brexit.”
He added: “”I was questioned on it by the BBC almost every time I appeared and so was Michael Gove…. There’s all sorts of interviews which said that of course we’d prefer a deal, but that there would be a risk.”
However, Raab consistently argued during the campaign that we would get a deal and it was not in the EU’s interests nor credible to suggest that we would not get a good deal.
In an article written by Raab for the Telegraph in February 2016, he argued that the EU would not deny us market access, saying: “The Remain campaign assert the EU would cut off its nose to spite its face, vindictively defying its own interests by shutting Britain out of its markets altogether. That’s not remotely credible.”
He also said in April 2016 in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil: “We’re very well placed, and mutual self-interest suggests we’d cut a very good deal and it’s certainly not in the Europeans’ interest to erect trade barriers.”
Additionally, on an episode of BBC Daily Politics in April 2016, Raab said: “The idea that Britain would be apocalyptically off the cliff edge if we left the EU is silly.”
The BBC, Channel 4 and The Guardian have scoured clips, interviews and articles from the time. None has found any evidence to support Raab’s claim. Invited to provide evidence for Raab’s comments, a Cabinet Office spokesperson told the Guardian: “This is not for the civil service to answer.”
There is also no support for his claim that other campaigners advocated no deal. Gove said in April 2016: “Outside the EU, we would still benefit from the free trade zone which stretches from Iceland to the Russian border.”
Indeed, Gove, who is now the Cabinet minister in charge of “no deal” planning, wrote in the Daily Mail in March this year: “We didn’t vote to leave without a deal. That wasn’t the message of the campaign I helped lead.”
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson told the Treasury select committee in March 2016: “It doesn’t seem to me to be very hard … to do a free trade deal very rapidly indeed.” The new prime minister also said as late as July 2017: “There is no plan for no deal, because we are going to get a great deal.”
When Brexiters now claim the public knew they were voting for “no deal” during the referendum, they are falsifying the record. They have no mandate to crash out. Before doing something so crazy, they need to go back and ask the people whether they want it.
As for Raab, he seems unfortunately to have the same loose grip on facts as his boss.