Boris
Johnson: The EU wants a superstate, just as Hitler did
BY Tim Ross, senior
political correspondent
14 MAY 2016 •
10:00PM
The European Union
is pursuing a similar goal to Hitler in trying to create a powerful
superstate, Boris Johnson says.
In a dramatic
interview with the Telegraph, he warns that while bureaucrats in
Brussels are using “different methods” from the Nazi dictator,
they share the aim of unifying Europe under one “authority”.
But the EU’s
“disastrous” failures have fuelled tensions between member states
and allowed Germany to grow in power, “take over” the Italian
economy and “destroy” Greece, he warns.
“Napoleon, Hitler,
various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an
attempt to do this by different methods."
Boris Johnson
Mr Johnson invokes
Winston Churchill’s war-time defiance, urging the British people to
be “the heroes of Europe” again, set the country free and save
the EU from itself by voting to leave in the referendum next month.
The former mayor of
London, who is a keen classical scholar, argues that the past 2,000
years of European history have been characterised by repeated
attempts to unify Europe under a single government in order to
recover the continent’s lost “golden age” under the Romans.
“Napoleon, Hitler,
various people tried this out, and it ends tragically,” he says.
“The EU is an
attempt to do this by different methods.
“But fundamentally
what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no
underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single
authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this
massive democratic void.”
Mr Johnson’s
potentially inflammatory comparison to Hitler comes at a critical
time in the referendum campaign, with senior Tories on either side
publicly attacking each other in blunt terms.
In the interview,
the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, who is a favourite to be the
next Conservative leader:
Fuels speculation
over his own ambitions by setting out his own “Tory mission” for
how to win future general elections. He warns that the Conservatives
cannot simply talk about “aspiration and opportunity” while
forgetting the poor, in a coded rebuke to George Osborne;
Piles pressure on
David Cameron by challenging him to a face-to-face television debate,
saying such a clash is crucial for the democratic process;
Accuses the Prime
Minister of being “rash” and undermining Nato by claiming that
the EU is the guarantor of peace in Europe and that Brexit could lead
to war;
Insists that he is
still “friends” with Mr Cameron even though senior Tories are
“knocking seven bells out of each other” like rugby players in
the middle of a brutal match.
Mr Johnson was
speaking as the referendum battle entered its most intense final six
weeks.
With polls
suggesting the contest is close, leaders of all the main political
parties put aside their differences to join the Remain campaign in
favour of continuing EU membership.
“I am absolutely
convinced that our economic security will be better if we stay in a
reformed European Union and it will be seriously at risk if we were
to leave."
David Cameron
In what Downing
Street sources described as an “unprecedented” moment, the
leaders of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green
parties all attended some of the 1,000 Remain campaign events held
across Britain on Saturday.
A Labour battle bus
took to the streets to campaign for Remain, while the Prime Minister
unveiled a new poster in his Oxfordshire constituency of Witney.
Mr Cameron warned
that a vote to leave the EU in the poll on June 23 would deliver an
“immediate and sustained hit” to the economy that could tip
Britain back into recession.
“I am absolutely
convinced that our economic security will be better if we stay in a
reformed European Union and it will be seriously at risk if we were
to leave,” he told a small crowd of supporters.
“If we vote to
leave on June 23 we will be voting for higher prices, we will be
voting for fewer jobs, we will be voting for lower growth, we will be
voting potentially for a recession. That is the last thing our
economy needs.”
The Prime Minister’s
Remain campaign will escalate its warnings of the economic costs of a
vote for Brexit this week with a series of further high profile
interventions.
In an article for
the Telegraph website, Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, explains
why as a lifelong critic of Brussels he converted to join the Remain
campaign.
“I am a
Eurosceptic and proud of it,” Mr Javid writes.
But even Margaret
Thatcher was in favour of Britain remaining in the European single
market, and “campaigned enthusiastically” to create it, he says.
Mr Javid argues: “It
gives every business in Britain access to 500 million customers with
no barriers, no tariffs and no local legislation to worry about.”
Yesterday, Mr
Johnson travelled to Bristol, as Vote Leave staged 300 events around
the UK. In his interview, he suggests that the economic benefits of
EU membership have been exaggerated, when in fact the euro has
fuelled tensions between member states.
“The Italians, who
used to be a great motor-manufacturing power, have been absolutely
destroyed by the euro – as was intended by the Germans,” Mr
Johnson claims.
“The euro has
become a means by which superior German productivity is able to gain
an absolutely unbeatable advantage over the whole eurozone.” He
adds: “This is a chance for the British people to be the heroes of
Europe and to act as a voice of moderation and common sense, and to
stop something getting in my view out of control.”
Meanwhile, the Vote
Leave campaign published research suggesting that the single market
had failed Britain. Official EU statistics show that over the last
decade, the value of British exports of goods to the EU has fallen by
18 per cent.
The campaign claims
that this is a worse performance than every member state other than
Luxembourg.
By contrast, German
exports of goods during the same period rose by 78.9 per cent.
In an echo of Sir
John Major’s soapbox campaigning, Mr Cameron stood on a pallet to
deliver his speech after unveiling a new poster. The poster showed an
envelope on a doormat and warned that leaving the EU would cost
“£4,300 for every household”.
Mr Cameron said
European funding would be cut for vital infrastructure projects
“across every region of the UK” after a Brexit vote.
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