Alex Salmond: Brexit causing '˜mad MP disease'

The former Scottish first minister said that triggering Article 50 was “politically crazy”, as he compared the Brexit vote to the Iraq war.

The MP for Gordon added that Britain had lost its way in terms of international leadership, and would now be left in an “embarrassing” relationship with US President Donald Trump.

He told the Commons: “My honourable friend ... asked me yesterday if I could remember in the last 30 years in this place of a time the House was gripped by collective madness.

“That time obviously was Iraq, when this House was mesmerised by a strong prime minister into the blood and disaster of the Iraqi war.

“But it’s certainly not mesmerising rhetoric that’s responsible for mad MP disease in this case.

“The right honourable member for Rushcliffe (Ken Clarke) yesterday compared it to Alice in Wonderland.

“But Alice only took herself into the hole.

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“This Prime Minister is taking virtually all of the Tory Party, half the Labour Party and the entire country into the hole.

“It is politically crazy, what is being done.”

Mr Salmond said Britain’s international role had evolved into one of a leading player in Europe alongside a special relationship with the United States.

He added that Britain was now cutting off its ties with the EU and seeking to foster a closer relationship with the US.

Mr Salmond said: “That leaves you caught in the headlights, like the Prime Minister was earlier this week.

“When asked to condemn the obvious thing that any human being would have condemned, she refused to do it three times, in case she offends her new bestie in the White House.

“If she’d said it, she would have offended her new best friends in the White House.

“You go headlong into the arms of a United States president who is at best unpredictable.

“It’s going to get worse and more embarrassing because of the imbalance in the relationship.”