Row breaks out over Boris’s Hitler remarks
A ROW has broken out after Boris Johnson, one of the key backers of the Leave campaign, compared the European Union to Hitler’s Germany.
Chris Grayling, the Leader of the House of Commons, and former Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Lamont defended his remarks.
However, they were attacked by a Normandy veteran, senior Labour politicians and Sir Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill. In an interview with The Sunday Tel
egraph, Mr Johnson, the former London mayor, said bureaucrats in Brussels and the Nazi dictator shared the aim of unifying Europe under one “authority”.
He argued that the past 2,000 years had been characterised by repeated attempts to unify Europe: “Napoleon, Hitler tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.”
The comments caused an immediate row between anti and pro-EU cam- paigners. Mr Grayling, a Eurosceptic cabinet minister, said: “Boris is a historian – he was doing a piece of historical analysis.”
Mr Duncan Smith, who was work and pensions secretary from 2010 until earlier this year, said Mr Johnson was merely asserting “a historical fact”. Lord Lamont, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer who is also backing a Leave vote on June 23, said it was a fact there were fascist theorists who “believed strongly in a united Europe”.
However, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, who took part in the Normandy landings, said: “This comparison of the EU and Nazi Germany is absurd.
“Hitler’s main aim was to create an empire in the east. Any connection between that and the EU is simply laughable.”
Sir Nicholas, a prominent pro-European Conservative MP, said Mr Johnson had “gone too far.”
Labour figures also attacked the remarks. Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, said Johnson’s comparison of the EU to the Third Reich was “offensive and desperate”.