Boris
Johnson blasted Barack Obama as a 'hypocrite' today as the US President
prepares to visit Britain and endorse the campaign to keep Britain in
the EU.
The London Mayor lashed out at Mr Obama as details of his visit next week became clear.
Air
Force One will land in Britain on Thursday and Mr Obama will meet the
Queen as part of her 90th birthday celebrations before he heads to
Downing Street for talks with David Cameron.
The
White House has made clear for the first time Mr Obama will make a
'very candid' endorsement of Mr Cameron's campaign during his visit.
Boris
Johnson today said it was 'hypocritical' for Barack Obama to encourage
Britain to stay in the EU when the United States would never accept the
same surrender of sovereignty
Mr Johnson today told the Standard: 'I honestly don't mind the idea of him joining the debate.
'Where
we do part company, and where I do mind, is that it is plainly
hypocritical for America to urge us to sacrifice control — of our laws,
our sovereignty, our money and our democracy — when they would not dream
of ever doing the same.'
Yesterday, Ben
Rhodes, the president's deputy national security adviser, said: 'The
approach he (Mr Obama) will take is that we have no closer friend in the
world, and if he is asked his view he will offer it.
'He will be very straightforward and candid as a friend on why it's good for the UK to remain in the European Union.
The president has said we support a strong UK in the EU. For us the UK is a key partner and the EU is a key partner.
'We
believe all of us benefit when the EU can speak with a strong single
voice and can work with us to achieve prosperity. We believe the US
benefits from a strong UK economy.'
Mr Johnson's
intervention comes a day after another Eurosceptic MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg,
welcomed an intervention from Mr Obama because he was such a failure as
president it would help the Brexit campaign.
Mr Rees-Mogg told the House magazine: 'I don't mind him coming over to say what he wants because I think it helps Brexit.
'I
can't think the British people will want to be told what to do by a
rather unsuccessful American president who has had one of the least
successful foreign policies in modern history.
'He has appointed as two of his closest subordinates people who have a history of hostility to the United Kingdom.
'In
the 1980s Joseph Biden and John Kerry voted against extraditing our
terrorists immediately after the Brighton bomb. They held it up in a
senate committee.'
Mr Obama
will make his intervention next week when he visits the UK for meetings
with David Cameron, left at the White House last year, and the Queen
The
North East Somerset MP added: 'Obama appointed them – so does that make
him a great friend of Britain to whom we should listen?'
Mr
Obama's trip to the UK will be his first meeting with Mr Cameron after
openly criticised Mr Cameron's foreign policy in Libya last week.
The
US President used a damning interview with The Atlantic magazine to
claim Mr Cameron had been 'distracted by other things' when he should
have been stablising Libya in 2011.
And
he revealed that he warned Mr Cameron last summer that the 'special
relationship' between Britain and America would be lost if he refused to
commit to spending the Nato target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence.
He
said he wanted Britain and France to take the lead in Libya to break
their habit of 'pushing us to act but then showing an unwillingness to
put any skin in the game'.
His
remarkably candid remarks put the 'special relationship' between the
two countries at risk and the White House scrambled to repair relations
with Downing Street hours after the interview was published.
No comments:
Post a Comment