Far from The Great Escape

✒ BORIS Johnson has compared leaving the EU to Steve McQueen’s escape attempts in the film The Great Escape.

That attempt didn’t end well for Steve McQueen, did it? He ended up entangled and injured.

It is, of course, ludicrous propaganda for Johnson to compare the EU to Nazi guards. It says nothing about the EU, but says plenty about Johnson’s crass stupidity and nonsense.

The EU was established after World War II to help prevent fascism and authoritarianism from ever taking root again, through promoting trade and co-operation.

Britain struggled postwar in the late 1950s and 1960s. We failed to modernise our industries and others overtook us. We twice applied in the 1960s to join the European organisation which preceded the EU, but were twice rebuffed.

The Tories led us into Europe in 1973 to help us modernise. We did. We went from being the ‘sick man of Europe,’ which we were, to markedly improved.

Think of all the poorer areas of the UK which have benefited from help. Emmaus Bristol, for example, got £400,000 from an EU grant towards the capital costs of its new building in Stokes Croft.

European funds have helped hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of poorer Britons left behind by the ‘market economy.’

Johnson says he will help anyone left behind. The UK has massive regional differences, but it is hard to see where the promised new jobs will come from.

Factories are now full of robots which have taken the old unskilled factory jobs.

Services will provide the new jobs, and these will need good skills and education.

Far from being The Great Escape, Brexit will be The Great SelfInflicted Disaster. Steve Mansfield Bristol