It has emerged that Jacob Rees-Mogg is now the public’s second favorite choice to replace Theresa May in Number 10 Downing Street. Rees-Mogg is staunchly pro-Brexit and has been a vocal critic of the Prime Minister in recent weeks; heading the so called Brexiteer revolt and accusing her of failing to take a sufficiently tough stance in negotiations to leave the EU. George Galloway shared his opinion on the issue with Sputnik.
Sputnik: Would Jacob Rees-Mogg be an adequate replacement for Theresa May?
George Galloway: As to adequate, that’s a matter for the Conservative party. It seems to me that they’re in such chaos at the minute that the center cannot hold. She is famously against Brexit; as is her chancellor of the exchequer, next door in number 11 so it’s a very difficult situation that the Conservatives find themselves in.
The emergence of Mr Rees-Mogg as a serious contender for the Tory leadership is again a measure of the problems they are in, because if you’d have told anyone, even a year ago, that Jacob Rees-Mogg was Prime Ministerial material, no one really would have believed it.
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It’s a measure of the flatness of the surrounding landscape I think, that Mr. Rees-Mogg has begun to loom much larger. The attitude to Brexit is very different, Rees-Mogg would be a serious Brexiteer and Theresa May is not.
I’m personally hoping for Rees-Mogg to lead the Tory party because I believe that if he was, then the polarity of British politics, between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Jeremy Corbyn, would be the perfect storm really.
It would be the perfect personification of the real difference that exists in Britain, as to what our future is. Mr. Rees-Mogg, the right honourable member for the 19th century, against Jeremy Corbyn, finally an authentic representative of the British Labor movement, with a long record of standing up for socialist policies and I would really fancy Corbyn to win.
Sputnik: How would a Jeremy Corbyn government fare during Brexit negotiations?
George Galloway: I would trust Corbyn to deal with Brexit more than anyone else in the British political scene. Having sat next to him for almost 30 years in parliament, I am not in aby doubt about what he really thinks of the EU.
If elected Prime Minister he would be in a very much stronger position. As to austerity, Mr.Corbyn opposed it all along as a political choice not an economic necessity and I’m sure he would rapidly bring it to a close.
Sputnik: Is there still a chance that Boris Johnson could become prime minister?
George Galloway: Boris Johnson is still second favorite to Theresa May and therefore one place above Mr. Rees-Mogg in the public opinion polls. I’m not sure that’s fully reflecting the shifting that’s taking place in the Conservative party.
Certainly in parliament, Mr. Johnson’s shares are rapidly falling, faster than the bitcoin price, because people are discovering, and they ought to have known this for a very long time, that Boris Johnson is a pretty low character, whereas Mr.Rees-Mogg is not.
He’s a person of principle and character; it’s just that his principles are entirely wrong.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.
