BORIS BASHES OBAMA OVER BUST.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, a leader of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, was facing strong criticism Friday for suggesting U. S. President Barack Obama may have an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire” because of his Kenyan roots.

On a visit to the U. K., Obama weighed in to Britain’s debate about European Union membership, urging voters to back staying in the 28-nation bloc.

Johnson said Obama’s advice was “paradoxical, inconsistent, incoherent” because Americans “would never contemplate anything like the EU for themselves.”

Writing in the U.K.’s Sun newspaper, Johnson recounted a claim that a bust of former British prime minister Winston Churchill was removed from the Oval Office after Obama was elected and returned to the British embassy.

Johnson wrote that some said removing the bust “was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire, of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

Obama’s father was from Kenya, a former British colony that gained independence in the 1960s.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell said, “Many people will find Boris Johnson’s loaded attack on President Obama’s sincerity deeply offensive.”

THE UNITED STATES WANTS A STRONG UNITED KINGDOM AS A PARTNER.

The White House also has said the Churchill story is untrue, and the bust is still in the presidential residence.

Obama’s visit comes two months before a June referendum on leaving the union. Polls suggest it will be a closefought race.

“Let me be clear, ultimately this is something that the British voters have to decide for themselves but ... part of being friends is to be honest and to let you know what I think,” he said. “It affects our prospect as well. The United States wants a strong United Kingdom as a partner.”

He cast a grim picture of the economic stakes, saying flatly the U.S. would not rush to write a free trade deal with a newly independent Britain. The U.S. is focused on writing a trade agreement with the EU and would not prioritize a bilateral agreement with the U.K. Britain would have to get “in the back of the queue,” he said.

Obama plunged into a whirlwind of socializing Friday that began over a birthday lunch with the Queen and ending at a dinner hosted by the future of the British monarchy — Prince William, his wife, Princess Catherine, and his brother, Prince Harry.