Boris blames Project Fear for pro-EU ‘mourning’

CROWDS of young people protesting against the EU referendum result were experiencing the ‘last psychological tremors of Project Fear’, according to Boris Johnson.

The former London mayor, who campaigned for Brexit, said Project Fear was ‘perhaps the most thoroughgoing government attempt to manipulate public opinion since the run-up to the Iraq War’.

Mr Johnson slammed Government inertia for failing to make a positive case for Brexit. This had led to a ‘contagious mourning’ akin to that which followed the death of Princess Diana.

He said it was time for the ‘nonsense’ to end, adding: ‘It was wrong of the Government to offer the public a binary choice on the EU without being willing – in the event that people voted Leave – to explain how this can be made to work in the interests

of the UK and europe.’ He went on: ‘We cannot wait until mid-September, and a new PM.’ He said there needed to be a clear statement of some basic truths, including that controlled immigration would continue and that it was in the interests of eU countries to do a free-trade deal. Writing in the daily Telegraph, he added: ‘The future is very bright indeed.’

Last night Mr Johnson’s camp accused Michael Gove of being ‘shifty, unprincipled and untrustworthy’ after extraordinary claims emerged about his alleged duplicity.

Less than two hours before the Justice Sec- retary announced his intention to stand as Tory leader, his team emailed Mr Johnson’s advisers to promise they would be turning up at his campaign launch.

The former London mayor’s aides believe the message proves Mr Gove was deliberately keeping Mr Johnson in the dark for as long as possible to inflict maximum damage to his campaign.

Mr Gove was yesterday forced to deny allegations that he was a ‘political serial killer’ who betrayed both david Cameron and the ex-mayor. The Justice Secretary was accused of ‘humiliating’ Mr Johnson and ‘destroying him publicly’ by abandoning him and running his own campaign for Tory leader.

In a bruising interview on the andrew Marr Show yesterday, the host laid out damaging accusations against Mr Gove, describing his role in Mr Johnson’s political demise as a ‘brutal kind of political knife-work’.

Mr Gove claimed he took the decision to stand very late last Wednesday evening, reflected on it overnight and then – after discussing it with colleagues – made his final resolution early on Thursday morning. His campaign manager was ringing MPs around 7am asking them to come to a meeting at which Mr Gove would tell them he was running. But around the same time – 7.08am – one of Mr Gove’s special advisers sent an email to Mr Johnson’s camp saying the Justice Secretary’s supporters would be attending the ex-mayor’s launch later that day.

Less than two hours later, at 9.02am, Mr Gove announced that he himself was going to stand for leader. a senior campaign source in Mr Johnson’s camp said: ‘It’s not the crime that proves some long-held plan, but the cover-up that proves it. Gove’s cover-up started before he even committed the crime.

‘Shifty, unprincipled, and untrustworthy, Gove was determined to leave Boris no room for manoeuvre and no room to react. It was a coup.’

It came as allies of Mr Johnson told the Sunday Telegraph that Mr Gove was a ‘Machiavellian psychopath’ who was always plotting to knife his friend. But Mr Gove said he had decided to launch his own campaign for the Tory leadership ‘reluctantly’ because the former mayor of London ‘lacked grit’.