Osborne Says U.K. Voters Didn’t Support ‘Hard Brexit’ From EU

  • Former chancellor says U.K. shouldn’t be run from ‘extremes’
  • Osborne says in Chicago speech that deal will mean compromises

George Osborne.

Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
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Former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne warned against the U.K. signing up for a “hard Brexit,” arguing that is not what voters backed in June’s referendum on membership of the European Union.

“We need to resist the false logic that leads from exiting the EU to exiting all forms of European cooperation -- and that values the dangerous purity of splendid isolation over the practical necessity of cooperation in the real world,” Osborne said in a speech in Chicago late on Thursday. “Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not.”