Remoaners are like depressed robot Marvin, says Welby

DIEHARD Remainers are “apocalyptic” in their Brexit forecasts, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Speaking at an event to publicise his book, Reimagining Britain, published next month, Justin Welby compares anti-brexit campaigners to Marvin the depressed robot, the paranoid android from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy stories.

He said Remainers “foresee the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Book of Revelation or at the least the UK economy becoming like that of Greece, with massive rises in unemployment, a sharp fall in the value of the pound, consequent high inflation, the country turning in on itself and succumbing to extremism and xenophobia”.

Arguing that both sides exaggerate the likely consequences of Brexit, he likens supporters to optimistic Doctor Pangloss in Candide, Voltaire’s 18thcentury satire, arguing that they believe that “by the end of the process we will, like the Dodo in Alice in Wonderland, say ‘everybody has won and everybody will have prizes’”.

The Archbishop also criticises those who try to stop new housing, warning “a community that is too exclusive becomes like a hedonistic version of ancient Sparta: only the elite live in it.”

He added that developers should be compelled by law to incorporate shops, gyms and churches into new-builds.

The Archbishop also revealed that he is due to give evidence in person to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on March 21.