By Greg Heffer, political reporter
Former chancellor Lord Lawson, a leading Brexiteer, has been accused of hypocrisy after revealing he is applying for permanent residency in France.
The Tory peer, who was a member of the Vote Leave campaign, lives in France and is now working through what he described as "tiresome" paperwork to obtain a permanent residency card - known as a cartes de sejour.
He told expat newspaper The Connexion: "I've just started and don't know how it will work out but am not particularly worried.
"It comes under the category of tiresome rather than serious.
"I understand some people are worried about healthcare cover and hope it will be sorted out.
"Speaking as a Brit in France - and I'm not applying for French nationality - I am not worried."
Despite his preparations to stay on the continent, Lord Lawson said he didn't think protecting the rights of Britons living in the EU would be a "major problem" in Brexit negotiations and "will be sorted out".
However, he claimed a UK-EU trade deal and solving the Irish border question, which he said was being used for "political reasons", would be more difficult.
"The problem is trade, where EU negotiators want to punish the UK for leaving, not because most of them are anti-British, but to discourage others," he said.
"They don't intend to inflict punishment on UK citizens in France.
"The Irish border is a problem. The border issue is being whipped up by Brussels and Dublin for political reasons.
"There was only a problem when the IRA were active militarily and saw border posts as useful targets. But they were defeated."
Lord Lawson branded Theresa May's government as "weak" and "not doing a particularly good job" on Brexit - but he suggested leaving the EU "will soon give benefits".
The Best For Britain group, which wants to keep the UK open to EU membership and is expected to campaign for a second EU referendum, claimed Lord Lawson's application for residency in France "takes the biscuit".
Spokesman Paul Butters said: "It seemed to Lawson that no cost was not worth paying to leave.
"But with this news, it seems the cost will be paid by others while the former chancellor suns himself in his luxury home in France.
"The former chancellor looks like a hypocrite."
4:11 Best for Britain came under fire on Wednesday after the group's head, former foreign office minister Lord Malloch-Brown, compared Brexit to appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Britain's history as an island nation adjacent to mainland Europe is when we try to, sort of, pull away from Europe's problems and close ourselves off to them they have a horrible habit of infecting us anyway.
"Appeasement in the 1930s, you name it. For centuries Britain has ignored events on continental Europe at its peril."
In response to the crossbench peer's comments, Leave Means Leave boss John Longworth, the ex-director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "Leaving the EU isn't about closing ourselves off.
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"It's about taking back control and becoming a global, more outward-looking Britain.
"The only appeasement that is going on right now is that being conducted by our government in the face of Brussels bullies."
Original ArticlePolitics
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