Dominic Grieve blasts Brexiteers as ‘unhinged’

Dominic Grieve has hit out at Brexiteer MPs PA Archive/PA Images

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve has launched a blistering attack on Brexit-backing MPs and media.

Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in.

Become a Supporter Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only continue to grow with your support.

Grieve said he believes some of his colleagues have become “unhinged” amid the “hysteria” over leaving the European Union.

He also said there was a danger of MPs being “bullied into silence” by newspapers and social media as Brexit legislation passed through Parliament.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics, he said: “I do sometimes think that some of my colleagues have become unhinged actually, not the PM.

“The PM’s problem is that she’s surrounded by people who get louder and more strident by the moment as some of the inevitable problems, which were going to come with Brexit, start to make themselves apparent.”

Grieve was asked whether publicly disagreeing with colleagues had been uncomfortable. He said: “Of course I feel in one way uncomfortable, parties are held together by ties of affection and loyalty more than anything else.

“It’s very important to be polite and it’s very important to listen if you’re going to have a disagreement.

“But equally there does come a point in these processes where the risk that you start to run is that you’re just being bullied into silence and I think the last week has shown to me that that risk is very apparent.

“Some of my colleagues get death threats. All these are at least in part generated by the sort of media coverage that is being given and cranking up the tension, the excitement, the hysteria, presumably because it sells copy.

“This isn’t a good way of making rational decisions.”