'Quitting the EU won't solve our problems' - Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson, the new Tory Prime Minister, claimed in his column for The Telegraph that leaving the EU won’t solve Britain’s problems.

He wrote that:

‘The question of EU membership is no longer of key importance to the destiny of this country’.

He asserted:

‘If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by Bwussels*, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure.’

(*His spelling)

He added:

‘Why are we still, person for person, so much less productive than the Germans? That is now a question more than a century old, and the answer is nothing to do with the EU.

‘In or out of the EU, we must have a clear vision of how we are going to be competitive in a global economy.’

Mr Johnson warned that leaving the EU comes with the risk that international companies might stop investing in Britain.

He also cautioned that UK firms could be put at a ‘long-term disadvantage’ if Britain was unable to ‘influence the standards and regulations in Brussels.’

There was also an argument, alerted Mr Johnson, that the EU, ‘is better placed to strike trade deals with the US, or China, than the UK on its own’.

Mr Johnson added that:

‘More generally, there is a risk that leaving the EU will be globally interpreted as a narrow, xenophobic, backward-looking thing to do.’

Mr Johnson also told Sky News:

"I would vote to stay in the Single Market

"I'm in favour of the Single Market. I want us to be able to trade freely with our European friends and partners."

On a visit to Paris, Mr Johnson also told reporters, "We need to stay in the Council of Ministers of the internal market. In my view, the British have done good things for Europe."

He continued, "We have the free movement of goods meaning French companies can buy important things like infrastructure in the UK and we benefit."

On BBC Radio Five Live, Mr Johnson commented on what would happen if Britain left the EU. He responded:

“We’d still have huge numbers of staff trying to monitor what was going on in the community, only we wouldn’t be able to sit in the Council of Ministers, we wouldn’t have any vote at all.

“Now I don’t think that’s a prospect that’s likely to appeal.”

? But all this is what Boris Johnson said three years BEFORE the EU referendum.

In February 2016 - just four months before the referendum - Mr Johnson stunned the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, by unexpectedly announcing that he was joining the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union.

Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, immediately Tweeted:

“Whatever my great friend Boris decides to do I know that he is NOT an outer.”

Just two weeks previously, Mr Johnson had written in his Telegraph column:

“It is also true that the Single Market is of considerable value to many UK companies and consumers, and that leaving would cause at least some business uncertainty, while embroiling the Government for several years in a fiddly process of negotiating new arrangements, so diverting energy from the real problems of this country - low skills, low social mobility, low investment etc - that have nothing to do with Europe.”

Just before deciding to back the Leave campaign, Mr Johnson penned another pro-Remain column for The Telegraph in which he wrote that Britain’s continued membership of the EU would be a “boon for the world and for Europe”.

Johnson wrote of the EU:

“This is a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British firms. The membership fee seems rather small for all that access. Why are we so determined to turn our back on it?”

But the column was never published, as a few days later Mr Johnson decided instead to back Brexit.

A spokesman for the ‘Remain’ campaign commented at the time, “Everybody in Westminster knows that Boris doesn’t really believe in Out. He’s putting his personal ambition before the national interest.”

Of course, Boris Johnson might have simply changed his mind.

But there is another, more likely explanation.

Boris saw Brexit as a golden opportunity to move into number 10 Downing Street.

Just as the previous incumbent, Theresa May, did in the days following the referendum result – even though, just like Mr Johnson, she had previously backed Britain’s continued membership of the EU.

? Does Britain really want or need another two-faced Tory Prime Minister?

What the country now urgently needs is a Prime Minister who puts the country first.

A leader who understands that it’s in the country’s best interests to abandon Brexit, along with all the politicians who are using Brexit simply to further their own ambitions, at the expense of the country’s well-being.

? Commentary and graphic by Jon Danzig

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∞ Telegraph article from 12 May 2013: ‘Quitting the EU won’t solve our problems, says Boris Johnson’ 

? Reasons2Remain is a grassroots campaign for a democratic reversal of Brexit. We believe that Brexit will cause Britain huge harm, and that we were not given the full facts in the referendum of 2016.