Ian Payne Clashes With Caller Over Boris Johnson Breaking Brexit Promise

4 November 2019, 11:16

Ian Payne and Olita got into a heated row over whether Boris Johnson should have been entirely honest when negotiating Brexit.

They were referring to a Sky News interview with Sophie Ridge where the Prime Minister said he is "deeply, deeply disappointed" that he failed to deliver on his promise of leaving the EU on 31 October.

The caller, Olita, was not impressed with the Prime Minister for not keeping his word. She told Ian Payne that "what you need is honesty and that's what has been the problem."

Ian disagreed: "If you're negotiating, you have to bluff."

He added: "If he says 'I promise it's going to happen', what he's doing is he's saying to, as I said before, he's saying to Brussels, look, if you don't do it, we're going to leave without a deal."

They continued to disagree over whether honesty is the best policy.

Ian said: "That's politics. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be honest.

"Just ask Michael Gove about his cocaine comment. You know what I mean?

Sometimes you keep things to yourself, you say stuff that you maybe know it's not going to happen but you're doing it to try and get something done that will be for the benefit of the majority of the country."

Olita said: "Okay, if you want to get Brexit done is it OK to make promises about Brexit, that aren't actually true just so people can vote. Is it okay to make promises on your manifesto that are not true because it's politics?"

Olita then made a comparison between negotiating with Brussels and bringing up children and teaching them honesty.

She added: "When you're doing a negotiation, you don't say stuff that's not necessarily going to be true. It doesn't make sense."

Ian disputed this point, thinking all negotiations involve "bluff and counter-bluff".

Later on in the conversation, Ian said that Boris Johnson's "raison d'etre was to get rid of the backstop and he delivered".

Olita disagreed with this. She said: "He put the whole of Northern Ireland into the same agreement as the EU. How is that getting rid of the backstop?"

They concluded the debate by agreeing to disagree. Although Olita did say that he was very "heated up today".