Boris Johnson will be remembered as a “pound shop Nigel Farage” if he votes against Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal, Steve Baker has said.
On Wednesday afternoon MPs will vote on whether to approve the Stormont brake in the Windsor Framework agreed between the UK and the EU.
It is designed to reduce the customs checks on goods moving from Great Britain into Northern Ireland.
Johnson and Liz Truss have both joined a vocal Tory rebellion against the deal as they claim it still gives the EU too much power over the UK.
Speaking to broadcasters in Westminster this morning, Baker, who is a minister in the Northern Ireland Office, launched a bruising attack on the two former prime ministers.
“Both of them should be backing the Windsor Framework today. And what I would say is they’re both better than this,” he said.
“People need to realise this is the moment to bank the win and move forward together.”
Baker is a leading eurosceptic and played a key role in the Tories' parliamentary Brexit wars of 2019.
He said of Johnson: “He’s got a choice - he can be remembered for great acts of statecraft that he achieved or he can risk looking like pound shop Nigel Farage.
“And I hope he choses to be remembered as a statesman.”
Johnson said Sunak’s deal would leave Northern Ireland “captured by the EU legal order” which was “not acceptable”
Instead, he wants the government to pass the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which would allow ministers to unilaterally rip up parts of the existing deal between the UK and Brussels.
But with Labour backing the deal, Sunak should win the Commons vote comfortably, despite the Tory rebellion.