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By William James
BIRMINGHAM, England, September 30 (Reuters) – Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said on Sunday that punishing Great Britain in the Brexit talks would fuel the desire of other states to separate from the conservative party of Prime Minister Theresa May. Brussels.
Hunt's address to the party's annual conference in Birmingham was immediately perceived by the media and members as a pretense to be considered a candidate to replace May if her leadership hesitated about a seemingly intractable Brexit process.
Seeking to unify a party still divided between those who wanted to stay in the EU and those who wanted to leave, he described Brussels as a villain in blocked and acrimonious negotiations on a future partnership.
"Right now, you seem to think that the way to keep the club together is to punish a departing member," he said at the Conservative Party's annual conference in Birmingham.
"The lesson of history is clear: if you turn the EU club into a prison, the desire to escape will not diminish, it will increase and we will not be the only prisoner who wants to escape."
Hunt, 51, replaced Boris Johnson as foreign minister in July after Johnson's resignation in protest of May's Brexit plans.
Johnson was the face of the 2016 Brexit campaign and has since set out his own vision of Brexit, calling May's plan "deranged" and seeking the support of the majority of conservative members who also wanted to leave the EU .
Hunt took a different approach on Sunday, calling the 48% of Britons who voted for keeping the EU, while adopting a bellicose tone with Brussels and against Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
"If we want to unite the country, we must not only offer a real Brexit for 52% (" voters "), but also a generous Brexit for 48%. They are also patriots, "he said. "As fierce as the debate and the passions are, never forget that division and union will not give us a better Brexit, but a fake Brexit, a Brexit Corbyn or perhaps no Brexit. " MacLellan)
