WHAT A DIFFERENCE A MONTH MAKES!
PM hails London mayor he called extremists’ friend as they form a VERY unlikely pro-EU alliance
DAVID Cameron performed an extraordinary about-turn yesterday as he shared an EU campaign platform with London mayor Sadiq Khan, hailing him as a ‘proud Brit’.
Weeks after suggesting the mayor was a friend of extremists, the Prime Minister said he was pleased to stand with him in support of the In campaign.
During the failed push to get Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith into City Hall last month, the Prime Minister had accused Labour’s Mr Khan of sharing platforms with an Islamist extremist.
But yesterday that appeared to have been forgotten as Mr Cameron and Mr Khan joined forces to bang the Remain drum.
Leave campaigners said the Prime Minister’s sudden change of heart demonstrated he could not be trusted – and he sparked further anger among his backbenchers by claiming he was still a Eurosceptic, despite his strong support for EU membership.
He denied any ‘ Establishment conspiracy’ to hoodwink voters and – in a comeback to Tory MPs’ claim that he was guilty of scaremongering – he pledged to ‘speak clearly and speak positively’. In other developments yesterday: ÷ Business Secretary Sajid Javid was accused of putting his political career ahead of British firms as he prepared to make a Remain speech with stars of Dragons’ Den; ÷ City grandee Robert Hiscox accused the PM of running a ‘corrupt’ Remain campaign; ÷ Ken Clarke compared Boris Johnson to a ‘nicer version of Donald Trump’ and said Brexiteers were more interested in toppling Mr Cameron than the EU question. ÷ It was reported that six EU countries’ foreign ministers have met in secret to prepare for Brexit.
Last month, the Prime Minister savaged Mr Khan for appearing on stage with former imam Sulaiman Ghani. He told MPs: ‘Mr Khan has appeared on a platform with him nine times. This man supports IS.
‘Anyone can make a mistake … but if someone does it time after time after time, it is right to question their judgment.’
But Mr Cameron was forced to apologise after it emerged Mr Ghani had spoken in support of creating an Islamic state – not, crucially, the Islamic State terror group.
Yesterday the Prime Minister publicly shook hands with Mr Khan, as he said the mayor’s elec- tion was a symbol of progress in reducing discrimination.
‘In one generation someone who is a proud Muslim, a proud Brit and a proud Londoner can become mayor of the greatest city on Earth,’ Mr Cameron said as he offered his congratulations.
‘That says something about our country. There are still barriers to opportunity that we have to get rid of … But I have always said – and I say it again today standing alongside our new mayor – that we can claim to be on track to be the best multi- faith, multi- ethnic opportunity democracy.’
Mr Cameron joked that maybe his story was not as inspiring as the mayor’s, as he was a stockbroker’s son rather than a bus driver’s, adding: ‘We will disagree about many things … But we are both on the side of London, we are both on the side of the United Kingdom.
‘I want that spirit of unity of purpose to be with us today.’
Mr Khan said he would work closely with the Government ‘where it is in Londoners’ interests’, adding: ‘The reason why London is the greatest city … we have never taken an isolationist approach … we embrace other cultures and learn from other cultures and ideas.’
As the pair unveiled five ‘guarantees’ pledged by the Remain side, the PM mocked the Leave campaign after Ukip’s Diane James admitted last week that ‘we just don’t know’ whether Britons would require visas to travel to the continent if we left the EU.
‘“We just don’t know” isn’t good enough for the British people,’ he said – adding that the Remain camp was ‘levelling with people’.
But Ukip MP Douglas Carswell said: ‘David Cameron cannot be trusted. Just a month ago he attacked Sadiq Khan as a terrorist sympathiser, yet today he hailed him as a great politician as he stood next to him on a shared platform.’
He added: ‘David Cameron’s flipflops show that he is not a man of principle … He is only interested in saving his career, not in what is best for the British people.’
WHAT a difference a few weeks makes in the fickle world of politics.
Only last month, the Prime Minister stood up in the Commons and accused Sadiq Khan – then Labour’s candidate for London mayor – of consorting with Islamic extremists. Mr Khan snapped that Mr Cameron was part of ‘a nasty, dog-whistling campaign’ against him.
Yet miraculously the two men have now become best friends, sharing a platform yesterday to launch a ‘ five- point guarantee card’ supposedly explaining what we’d gain by remaining in the EU.
The card is about as convincing and genuine as their new-found friendship.
It claims Britain would be safer and more stable in the EU, we would have full access to the free market, workers’ rights would be protected and we would be exempted from ‘ever-closer union’.
What it doesn’t say, of course, is that full access to the free market also means accepting unlimited free movement of EU citizens, making a mockery of any attempt to control immigration.
No mention either that Europe remains in turmoil over the migrant crisis and the eurozone is still on the brink of recession, so the real danger to safety and stability may be staying in rather than leaving.
The so-called exemption from ever-closer union is so vague as to be meaningless and the idea that we need Brussels to tell us how to protect workers’ rights is, frankly, an insult to the intelligence.
If this is the best he’s got, no wonder Mr Cameron is afraid of taking on Mr Khan’s predecessor as mayor of London – his erstwhile friend and Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson – in a TV debate.