Boris Johnson interview:
Brussels is trying it on and will have to pay us for Brexit, says Boris Johnson as he storms through Labour’s heartland
Brussels could end up having to pay Britain a Brexit divorce bill because the UK has contributed to so many European Union assets, Boris Johnson has suggested, as he accused Europe of wanting to “bleed this country white”.
In his first major interview during the election campaign, the Foreign Secretary said there were “very good arguments” to why Britain should demand money back, adding that EU leaders were “trying it on”.
He said Britain could leave the EU without paying a penny if there was no Brexit deal, and compared warnings about a “no deal” Brexit to the unfounded fears over the non-existent millennium bug in 1999.
Mr Johnson, in typically combative mood as he visited Newport in south Wales to campaign with the local Conservative candidate Angela Jones-evans, also said an early deal on migrants’ rights could be impossible.
He was cheered by locals in the Labour heartland yesterday as he toured an indoor market, and will now be deployed on an almost daily basis up and down the country as the Tories capitalise on his “X factor” with voters.
Mr Johnson, the parliamentary candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, left no bullets in the chamber when it came to his views on the EU’S behaviour in the Brexit talks.
Referring to the hostile leaking of an account of Theresa May’s Downing Street dinner with Jean-claude Juncker, the European Commission president, and Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, he said: “We have seen from the shameful way they treated the No10 dinner that Brussels is ruthless in its negotiating techniques. They are going to play dirty. We have got to be very wary and intellectually very firm.
“They’re trying it on. They will have to be seen off.”
Mr Johnson has forthright views on the Brexit bill demand, which has risen from £40billion to £80billion in recent weeks. “They are going to try to bleed this country white with their bill,” he said. “The logic is preposterous – the idea that we should be on the hook for our share of every Commission press release that’s ever been issued in announcing multi-billion-pound payments to prawn fishing in Yucatan or whatever, that is not reasonable.”
Referring to the lyrics of the classic Eagles song, he added: “Jean-claude Juncker thinks it’s the Hotel California where you can check out but you can never leave. He is wrong. We could definitely walk away [without paying]. Theresa May is right, no deal is better than a bad deal and some of the anxiety I’ve read about the consequences of failing to get the deal remind me of the panic that led up to the turn of the millennium, the so-called millennium bug.”
His Conservative colleague Iain Duncan Smith has suggested Brussels should pay Britain a divorce bill, and last month, before the election was called, The Daily Telegraph reported that government officials believed the UK is entitled to £9billion worth of funds held by the European Investment Bank, as well as another £14billion of EU assets including property, cash and other investments.
So does Mr Johnson believe Brussels could end up paying the divorce bill, rather than Britain? “I do, I think there are very good arguments,” he said. “There are assets, I don’t want to get into the detail of the negotiation but there are assets that we share, that we have paid for over the years and there will need to be a proper computation of the value of those assets. The bill that’s been presented is absurd.”
He added: “I find it spine-chilling to think those negotiators could find themselves opposite Jeremy Corbyn. I’m struggling to imagine what would happen, and I think he is struggling to imagine what would happen. I don’t think he has the faintest idea how he would deliver it.”
Mr Johnson is an advocate of an early deal on migrants’ rights, but said his “hunch” was it will be “wrapped up with the rest of the negotiations” rather than agreed early.
“Given the way Brussels has decided to begin these negotiations and the style in which they seem determined to conduct them it may be difficult to do it but you never know, perhaps tempers will improve,” he said.
Mr Johnson would not be drawn on the forthcoming Tory manifesto, but hinted that it will contain a pledge to step up house-building.
He said “the biggest failure” of recent governments had been an inability to provide enough homes, something that Sajid Javid, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, intends to remedy by building “millions of new homes”.
It was a message that would have been popular with the voters he met in Newport, most of whom were Boris fans though not, perhaps, Tory fans.
Mark James, 53, who shook Mr Johnson’s hand from behind the Kriminal Records music stall, told Mr Johnson it would be “stupid” to vote Tory. “I remember the miners’ strike, I remember the destruction of heavy industry under Thatcher,” he said. “He is a nice guy though.”
Holly Palmer, 20, from Smithy’s Snack Bar, thrust a cupcake into Mr Johnson’s hand, and professed herself a huge Boris fan. Would she vote Tory? “To be honest I need to know more.”
Why does she like Mr Johnson then? His stance on Syria? His views on Brexit? “I like his hair,” she said.
At 32-year-old Natasha Graves’s ceramics and upcycling stall, Ngraves, he was given recycled concrete letters spelling out his name, one of which was painted blue.
“Oh my God, I’m freaking out!” Miss Graves said moments later. Surely, he could count on her vote?
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “If they could speak more about young people that would be great.”
If Mr Johnson could count on the vote of everyone who asked for a selfie with him in Newport, Angela Jonesevans would be well on the way to success. Although a few people booed him as he left the market, far more cheered him on his way.
But what about those who worry Mrs May is taking the Conservative Party too far towards the centre, at the expense of dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters? Mr Johnson insisted: “It’s only by having a competitive economy with strong incentives for enterprise, wealth creation and investment that you will have the tax base to pay for great public services and great infrastructure. That’s the heart of our economic prospectus. We will remain committed to that, absolutely. Rewarding thrift and enterprise and self-help, those are core Conservative beliefs.”
‘Some of the anxiety about failing to get the deal reminds me of the panic over the so-called millennium bug’