FORMER Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called Labour’s reset deal “very, very bad” and warned that Sir Keir Starmer was turning the UK into the EU’s “gimp”.

He accused Keir Starmer of dishonesty and accused him of a “total sell-out on our fisheries” adding: “I don’t want to see our country become the punk of Brussels.”

Johnson also claimed that “Starmer taking us back into the sweaty embrace of Brussels”.

He told Mark White on GB News: “I think it’s a complete and deliberate betrayal of Brexit, and it goes against what the Prime Minister said he was going to do. At the election in 2024, he said he wouldn’t go back on Brexit, on the freedoms that the British people won in that referendum.

“He’s done the absolute reverse. He’s decided to make this country a rule-taker. So, for a huge range of issues, on food standards, hygiene and many other things, areas where we want to do things differently, to take advantage of new technologies, we’re going to be taking rules from Brussels, under the control of the European Court of Justice, with no ability for our parliament, our government, to vary those rules on the likes.

“Number two, he’s done a total sell-out on our fisheries. A large part of Brexit was taking back control of our fantastic coastal waters. From January next year under the deal that we did, we were going to get back control of every single sprat, mackerel in UK waters.

“He’s put that off for at least 12 years, allowed Macron, which is what he wanted, allowed the French and many others to plunder UK waters again.

“Number three, he’s done a deal for dynamic alignment, keeping up with the EU without voting on it. In some environmental matters, the emissions trading scheme, which may mean we’re locked into bureaucratic and expensive EU green policies.

“Number four, you can see that he’s paving the way for a massive sell-out on borders so that 80 million Europeans who are between the ages of 18 and 30 can have the right of free movement to come to this country without let or hindrance, making a complete nonsense of what we did, which is taking back control, taking back legal control of our borders.

“And worst of all, he’s decided that we can pay for this, we’re going to pay for the privilege of once again being ruled from, in many ways, by Brussels. We’re going to be coughing up to the EU budgets. It’s absolutely absurd.

“It goes against what he said. He’s turning this country once again, into the orange ball-chewing, leather-trussed gimp…”

Johnson denied that the previous Conservative government had sold-out the fishing industry: ‘What we did was we came up with a transitional plan, and this was very hard fought. And step by step, we were taking back control of our fisheries.

“And as I’ve just explained to you, under the plan that we – this is why the EU was so panic-stricken. That’s why they wanted this, this so-called reset, because they knew that from January next year, every, as I say, every halibut, every cod, every mackerel in our waters, was going to revert completely to UK control.

“And the disaster is that Starmer, the Labour Prime Minister, has thrown away that massive negotiating advantage for absolutely nothing in return. It’s a completely the wrong thing for UK fisheries.”

Responding to a suggestion that the previous fisheries deal was weak, he said: “No, that’s rubbish. I don’t know who these critics are, but they’re talking total rubbish. Because actually, the deal that we did, as I have said, I think, and I’m saying that for the third time, allowed us to take back control of our fisheries in their entirety, from next year.

“So what’s really happened is that the remain establishment who never cared about the UK fishing industry have collaborated with the European Union to prevent that from happening, and they’ve done a deal with Macron other EU governments to abandon the gains that that we had won and to throw away our rights to our fish at the very moment when we’re about to take back full control.”

On fewer regulatory checks under the deal, he said: “This shows is how completely pointless and vexatious those regulatory checks really were, and by the way, they’re still not saying…look at carefully at what they say in the agreement. They’re still not saying that it will really be possible for a hamburger or a bacon sandwich or whatever, or a sausage roll, to go completely without checks from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

“They’re still not saying that there will be unfettered, frictionless movement across the Irish Sea. They’re not saying – look at it. Look at it carefully. And that is a disgrace. What we should have done is stuck with the UK internal market measures that we had, the protocol bill that we brought forward shortly before I was sadly obliged to leave office, which we should have stuck with because that made sure that there really couldn’t be any barriers to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

“And with great respect to everybody who set up the so-called Windsor Framework, it didn’t fix the problem. And you’ve got a situation now in which the UK is being tied closer and closer to the European single market, unable to deviate, unable to do things differently, which we’ve got to do in a competitive global economy because of the risk of diverging from Northern Ireland. That’s totally wrong.

“The UK should be able to do exactly what it needs to do, and look at what is really happening in the world economy. Compare the growth rates of the European Union and the United States of America or other developed economies where they have a more liberal a more free market, a less regulated, less high tax approach, that’s where the growth is.

“Why is Starmer taking us back into the sweaty embrace of Brussels when it’s massively uncompetitive, low growth and low productivity? It’s totally the wrong thing for us to do.”

On the defence element of the deal, he said: “I find this one of the most ridiculous subjects of all. The UK is the second biggest contributor to NATO after the United States of America, or has been for a very long time. We the UK continue to help our European friends and partners with defence commitments in Estonia or wherever, to say nothing of the leadership that we have shown in helping to protect the Ukrainians.

“How utterly incredible that they should now have some special requirements forbidding us to take part in European defence markets. It’s utterly, utterly absurd and protectionist, and we should have nothing – frankly, I don’t believe that we should have had anything to do with that, we don’t need to be fettered by some European defence or security community.

“It will never work. It’s no substitute for NATO, and you’ve only got to ask yourself the question, who leads such a community? Is it going to be France? Is it going to be Germany? Is it going to be the UK? We’re never going to agree on any of those.

“We should obviously be asked, but they’re never going to agree on it. It’s just not going to happen. You need America. You need NATO. We should stick with that structure, buy and sell from each other within the NATO framework, it’s obvious.”

On whether the public has the appetite to continue the Brexit debate, he said: ”I love the public with all my heart, but I care about the issue and I don’t want to see our country become the punk of Brussels.

“I don’t want to see our country a non-voting member of the EU. I don’t want to see our country returning to unfettered free movement with 80 million people eligible to come from the European Union.

“I don’t want to see us forced to accept rules over which we have no say. I think it’s anti-democratic, and I don’t think this agreement should be signed. And I think the next Conservative government, and this, God pray there’s a Conservative government as soon as possible, should get rid of this thing, lock, stock and barrel.”

Asked if shorter passport queues would be popular, he said: “I’m giving you, again, a classic example of why these barriers and these burdens were wholly vexatious and unnecessary. Get rid of them anyway, not doing anybody any good.

“So it’s a very, very bad deal. He’s chucked away a huge amount, not least the entirety of UK fisheries, for absolutely nothing, as far as I can see, in return. Scrap the deal.”