Naga Munchetty welcomed James Cleverly onto the show this morning as the presenter grilled the Foreign Office Minister on the Government’s Brexit negotiations. However, the BBC Breakfast host cut off Cleverly after the Tory MP slammed Munchetty for “repeating wrong information” during the heated debate.
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Munchetty said: “In the Conservative Party manifesto, Boris Johnson had said, ‘With a new parliament and a sensible majority Government,’ you have a significant majority Government.
“‘We can get that Brexit deal through in days, it is oven-ready and all of the Conservative MPs have elected to vote for it immediately.’
“He spoke of a deal that was ‘oven-ready, ready to go, put it in at gas mark four and Bob’s your uncle,’ these are his words.
She added: “Why are we reporting, why are we talking about fractious relations between negotiators negotiating this deal now with EU leaders and where’s the over-ready deal?”
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“No, you’re conflating two completely different things,” Cleverly hit back.
“The deal you were referencing and quoting the Prime Minister on was the Withdrawal Agreement Act.
“The deal that every single Conservative candidate at the General Election said they would support.
“We got the majority, they did support it, it went through, we left the European Union.”
“The Internal Market Bill breaks international law,” Munchetty quipped. “That’s the discussion carrying on at the moment.”
Shaking his head, the Tory MP said: “No it doesn’t.”
“The legislation called the Internal Market Bill doesn’t correspond with international law,” Munchetty reiterated.
“No, you’re repeating something that’s wrong,” Cleverly swiped. “What the Internal Market Bill does is it protects the integrity of the United Kingdom.
“It gives us the ability if we are unable to get that…”
Cutting the Tory MP off, Munchetty asked: “Just to clarify the EU’s legal threat is incorrect is it?”
Cleverly replied: “No, what the point is the Internal Markets Bill gives us the ability to protect the integrity of the United Kingdom.
“That may mean we have to diverge from some of the elements in the Withdrawal Agreement.”
BBC Breakfast airs daily on BBC One at 6am.
