Boris and a vision of hope that rattled EU

JAW-DROPPING. How else can we describe Jean-Claude Juncker’s response to Boris Johnson’s passionately upbeat vision of the UK’s future after Brexit? ‘ I am strictly against a European superstate,’ said the EU Commission president. ‘ The European Union cannot be built against the European nations, so this is total nonsense.’

Can this be the same Mr Juncker who, in his latest State of the Union address, outlined his plans for an EU in which all states would adopt the euro and belong to the open-borders Schengen area?

Is this the self- same, bibulous former prime minister of Luxembourg who called for a single all-powerful president to run the EU, with one finance minister to oversee a common European economic policy and tough curbs on national vetoes?

The truth is that Mr Juncker’s life mission is building a superstate – in direct opposition to the wishes of countless millions of EU citizens (not least in Britain) who crave national autonomy and a meaningful say in how their countries are run.

But then he was far from the only eurocrat spouting baloney in response to Mr Johnson’s eloquent defence of democracy and free trade – the first of a promised series of speeches in which ministers will set out to dispel Remoaners’ gloom.

Take Guy Verhofstadt, the EU Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, who said the Foreign Secretary was trying to erect trade barriers and branded him ‘the opposite of liberal’.

How’s that for turning the truth on its head? In fact it’s the EU that threatens to erect tariff barriers after Brexit, while our negotiators try to tear them down.

Indeed, the whole point of the iniquitous customs union is to protect inefficient EU producers from free competition with the rest of the world – meaning African farmers suffer while Europeans pay 20 per cent more than the global market rate for food.

As Mr Johnson put it: ‘It’s not about shutting ourselves off; it’s about going global.’ And with non- EU countries accounting for 90 per cent of the world’s predicted growth, he’s right that Brexit offers far more reason to hope than to fear.

After months in which gloom-mongers have been allowed to make the running, this paper hopes Mr Johnson’s speech will mark the start of a concerted Government drive to accentuate the positive.

Mr Juncker may not realise it, but the world is changing fast. And like the freedom-loving people of Britain, it’s leaving the EU behind.