Re: Boris Johnson: Americans would never accept EU restrictions – so why should we?

Admin Wed 11 Sep 2019, 10:07 pm

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/boris-johnson-the-eu-wants-a-superstate-just-as-hitler-did/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_fb&fbclid=IwAR35jHIX1P4Ne3PNrbFKLlamVUaCXvgkgFiNFneJ6prbSp8LloxkvUHu5og
Boris Johnson: The EU wants a superstate, just as Hitler did
Save
Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson does not deny his stance on the EU is preparation for a Tory leadership CREDIT: ANDREW PARSONS FOR THE TELEGRAPH

Tim Ross, senior political correspondent
15 MAY 2016 • 10:22AM
Follow
The European Union is pursuing a similar goal to Hitler in trying to create a powerful superstate, Boris Johnson says.

In a dramatic interview with the Telegraph, he warns that while bureaucrats in Brussels are using “different methods” from the Nazi dictator, they share the aim of unifying Europe under one “authority”.

But the EU’s “disastrous” failures have fuelled tensions between member states and allowed Germany to grow in power, “take over” the Italian economy and “destroy” Greece, he warns.

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.
Boris Johnson
Mr Johnson invokes Winston Churchill’s war-time defiance, urging the British people to be “the heroes of Europe” again, set the country free and save the EU from itself by voting to leave in the referendum next month.

The former mayor of London, who is a keen classical scholar, argues that the past 2,000 years of European history have been characterised by repeated attempts to unify Europe under a single government in order to recover the continent’s lost “golden age” under the Romans.

“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically,” he says.

“The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

“But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.”

Mr Johnson’s potentially inflammatory comparison to Hitler comes at a critical time in the referendum campaign, with senior Tories on either side publicly attacking each other in blunt terms.

Boris Johnson
Mr Johnson warns that bureaucrats in Brussels want to unify Europe under one “authority” CREDIT: ANDREW PARSONS FOR THE TELEGRAPH
In the interview, the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, who is a favourite to be the next Conservative leader:

Fuels speculation over his own ambitions by setting out his own “Tory mission” for how to win future general elections. He warns that the Conservatives cannot simply talk about “aspiration and opportunity” while forgetting the poor, in a coded rebuke to George Osborne;
Piles pressure on David Cameron by challenging him to a face-to-face television debate, saying such a clash is crucial for the democratic process;
Accuses the Prime Minister of being “rash” and undermining Nato by claiming that the EU is the guarantor of peace in Europe and that Brexit could lead to war;
Insists that he is still “friends” with Mr Cameron even though senior Tories are “knocking seven bells out of each other” like rugby players in the middle of a brutal match.
Mr Johnson was speaking as the referendum battle entered its most intense final six weeks.

With polls suggesting the contest is close, leaders of all the main political parties put aside their differences to join the Remain campaign in favour of continuing EU membership.

In what Downing Street sources described as an “unprecedented” moment, the leaders of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties all attended some of the 1,000 Remain campaign events held across Britain on Saturday.

A Labour battle bus took to the streets to campaign for Remain, while the Prime Minister unveiled a new poster in his Oxfordshire constituency of Witney.

I am absolutely convinced that our economic security will be better if we stay in a reformed European Union and it will be seriously at risk if we were to leave.
David Cameron
Mr Cameron warned that a vote to leave the EU in the poll on June 23 would deliver an “immediate and sustained hit” to the economy that could tip Britain back into recession.

“I am absolutely convinced that our economic security will be better if we stay in a reformed European Union and it will be seriously at risk if we were to leave,” he told a small crowd of supporters.

“If we vote to leave on June 23 we will be voting for higher prices, we will be voting for fewer jobs, we will be voting for lower growth, we will be voting potentially for a recession. That is the last thing our economy needs.”

The Prime Minister’s Remain campaign will escalate its warnings of the economic costs of a vote for Brexit this week with a series of further high profile interventions.

In an article for the Telegraph website, Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, explains why as a lifelong critic of Brussels he converted to join the Remain campaign.

“I am a Eurosceptic and proud of it,” Mr Javid writes.

But even Margaret Thatcher was in favour of Britain remaining in the European single market, and “campaigned enthusiastically” to create it, he says.

Mr Javid argues: “It gives every business in Britain access to 500 million customers with no barriers, no tariffs and no local legislation to worry about.”

Yesterday, Mr Johnson travelled to Bristol, as Vote Leave staged 300 events around the UK. In his interview, he suggests that the economic benefits of EU membership have been exaggerated, when in fact the euro has fuelled tensions between member states.

Boris Johnson on his family farm in the Exmoor National Park in Devon
Boris Johnson on his family farm in the Exmoor National Park in Devon CREDIT: ANDREW PARSONS FOR THE TELEGRAPH
“The Italians, who used to be a great motor-manufacturing power, have been absolutely destroyed by the euro – as was intended by the Germans,” Mr Johnson claims.

“The euro has become a means by which superior German productivity is able to gain an absolutely unbeatable advantage over the whole eurozone.” He adds: “This is a chance for the British people to be the heroes of Europe and to act as a voice of moderation and common sense, and to stop something getting in my view out of control.”

Meanwhile, the Vote Leave campaign published research suggesting that the single market had failed Britain. Official EU statistics show that over the last decade, the value of British exports of goods to the EU has fallen by 18 per cent.

The campaign claims that this is a worse performance than every member state other than Luxembourg.

By contrast, German exports of goods during the same period rose by 78.9 per cent.

In an echo of Sir John Major’s soapbox campaigning, Mr Cameron stood on a pallet to deliver his speech after unveiling a new poster. The poster showed an envelope on a doormat and warned that leaving the EU would cost “£4,300 for every household”.

Mr Cameron said European funding would be cut for vital infrastructure projects “across every region of the UK” after a Brexit vote.

for and against

The key arguments for and against staying in the EU - in a nutshell

IMMIGRATION
Leave:
Britain can never control immigration until it leaves the European Union, because freedom of movement gives other EU citizens an automatic right to live here.

Stay:
Leaving will not solve the migration crisis but bring it to Britain’s doorstep because border controls from the Continent will move from Calais in France to Dover in UK.

CRIME
Leave:
The European Arrest Warrant allows British citizens to be sent abroad and charged for crimes in foreign courts, often for minor offences. Exit would stop this.

Stay:
Rapists, murders and other serious criminals who convict offences in Britain can only be returned once fleeing abroad thanks to the European Arrest Warrant. Exit would stop justice being done.

TRADE
Leave:
Britain’s links with the EU are holding back its focus on emerging markets – there is no major trade deal with China or India, for example. Leaving would allow the UK to diversify its international links.

Stay:
44 per cent of Britain’s exports go to other EU countries. Putting up barriers with the countries that Britain trades with most would be counterproductive.

LAW
Leave:
Too many of Britain’s laws are made overseas by dictates passed down from Brussels and rulings upheld by the European Court of Justice. UK courts must become sovereign again.

Stay:
The exit campaign has over-exaggerated how many laws are determined by the European Commission. It is better to shape EU-wide laws from the inside rather than walking away.

JOBS
Leave:
The danger to jobs has been over-exaggerated. By incentivising investment through low corporation tax and other perks Britain can flourish like the Scandinavian countries outside the EU.

Stay:
Around three million jobs are linked to the EU and will be plunged into uncertainty if voters plump for exit, as businesses would be less likely to invest if the country was outside Europe.

CLOUT
Leave:
Britain does not need the EU to prosper internationally. By re-engaging with the Commonwealth the UK can have just as much clout as it does from inside the EU.

Stay:
Britain will be “drifting off into the mid-Atlantic” if it leaves the EU, as Nick Clegg likes to say. In a globalising world the UK’s interests are best protected by remaining part of the EU block, with American and Chinese leaders indicating as much.

FINANCE
Leave:
Talk of capital flight is nonsense. London will remain a leading financial centre outside the EU and banks will still want to be headquartered in Britain due to low tax rates.

Stay:
Banks will flee the UK and the City of London collapse if Britain votes for exit, because the trading advantages of being inside the EU help boost banks' profits.

SOVEREIGNTY
Leave:
The British Parliament is no longer sovereign. With the EU hell-bent on “ever closer union” and further economic integration likely after the euro crisis, it is best to call it quits before ties deepen.

Stay:
In a globalised world, every country must work closer with others if the want to flourish economically. A Little Englander desire for isolation will undermine the UK, plus the PM might have won an opt-out to “ever closer union” come the referendum.

DEFENCE
Leave:
Britain could soon be asked to contribute to a EU Army, with reports suggesting Angela Merkel may demand the Prime Minister’s approval in return for other concessions. That would erode the UK’s independent military force and should be opposed.

Stay:
European countries together are facing the threats from Isil and a resurgent Russia. Working together to combat these challenges is best – an effort that would be undermined if Britain turns its back on the EU.

Admin Mon 14 Mar 2016, 11:44 pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12192893/Americans-would-never-accept-EU-restrictions-so-why-should-we.html
Boris Johnson: Americans would never accept EU restrictions – so why should we?
Barack Obama's plan to urge voters to remain in the European Union is a 'piece of outrageous and exorbitant hypocrisy', Boris Johnson writes
VIDEO By Boris Johnson, video source ITN10:45AM GMT 14 Mar 2016

I love America. I believe in the American dream. Indeed, I hold that the story of the past 100 years has been very largely about how America rose to global greatness – and how America has helped to preserve and expand democracy around the world. In two global conflicts, and throughout the Cold War, the United States has fought for the founding ideals of the republic: that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth.

"There is no country in the world that defends its own sovereignty with such hysterical vigilance as the United States of America"
So it is on the face of it a bit peculiar that US government officials should believe that Britain must remain within the EU – a system in which democracy is increasingly undermined.
Some time in the next couple of months we are told that President Obama himself is going to arrive in this country, like some deus ex machina, to pronounce on the matter. Air Force One will touch down; a lectern with the presidential seal will be erected. The British people will be told to be good to themselves, to do the right thing. We will be informed by our most important ally that it is in our interests to stay in the EU, no matter how flawed we may feel that organisation to be. Never mind the loss of sovereignty; never mind the expense and the bureaucracy and the uncontrolled immigration.
VIDEO EU REFERENDUM IN OR OUT
The American view is very clear. Whether in code or en clair, the President will tell us all that UK membership of the EU is right for Britain, right for Europe, and right for America. And why? Because that – or so we will be told – is the only way we can have “influence” in the counsels of the nations.
It is an important argument, and deserves to be taken seriously. I also think it is wholly fallacious – and coming from Uncle Sam, it is a piece of outrageous and exorbitant hypocrisy.
There is no country in the world that defends its own sovereignty with such hysterical vigilance as the United States of America. This is a nation born from its glorious refusal to accept overseas control. Almost two and a half centuries ago the American colonists rose up and violently asserted the principle that they – and they alone – should determine the government of America, and not George III or his ministers. To this day the Americans refuse to kneel to almost any kind of international jurisdiction. Alone of Western nations, the US declines to accept that its citizens can be subject to the rulings of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. They have not even signed up to the Convention on the Law of the Sea. Can you imagine the Americans submitting their democracy to the kind of regime that we have in the EU?
Think of Nafta – the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement – that links the US with Canada and Mexico. Suppose it were constituted on the lines of the EU, with a commission and a parliament and a court of justice. Would the Americans knuckle under – to a Nafta commission and parliament generating about half their domestic law? Would they submit to a Nafta court of justice – supreme over all US institutions – and largely staffed by Mexicans and Canadians whom the people of the US could neither appoint nor remove? No way. The idea is laughable, and completely alien to American traditions. So why is it essential for Britain to comply with a system that the Americans would themselves reject out of hand? Is it not a blatant case of “Do as I say, but not as I do”?
VIDEO BORIS NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD JOIN THE EU
Of course it is. As for this precious “influence”, so dearly bought, I am not sure that it is all it is cracked up to be – or that Britain’s EU membership is really so valuable to Washington. Since the very foundation of the Common Market, the Washington establishment has supported the idea of European integration. The notable state department figure George W Ball worked on drafting the Schuman plan in 1950. He was a pallbearer at the funeral of Jean Monnet, the architect of the European project.
The Americans see the EU as a way of tidying up a continent whose conflicts have claimed huge numbers of American lives; as a bulwark against Russia, and they have always conceived it to be in American interests for the UK – their number one henchperson, their fidus Achates – to be deeply engaged. Symmetrically, it has been a Foreign Office superstition that we are more important to Washington if we can plausibly claim to have “influence” in Brussels. But with every year that passes that influence diminishes.
It is not just that we are being ever more frequently outvoted in the council of ministers, and our officials ever more heavily outnumbered in the Commission. The whole concept of “pooling sovereignty” is a fraud and a cheat. We are not really sharing control with other EU governments: the problem is rather that all governments have lost control to the unelected federal machine. We don’t know who they are, or what language they speak, and we certainly don’t know what we can do to remove them at an election.
"There is a profound difference between the US and the EU, and one that will never disappear"
When Americans look at the process of European integration, they make a fundamental category error. With a forgivable narcissism, they assume that we Europeans are evolving – rather haltingly – so as to become just like them: a United States of Europe, a single federal polity. That is indeed what the eurozone countries are trying to build; but it is not right for many EU countries, and it certainly isn’t right for Britain.
There is a profound difference between the US and the EU, and one that will never disappear. The US has a single culture, a single language, a single and powerful global brand, and a single government that commands national allegiance. It has a national history, a national myth, a demos that is the foundation of their democracy. The EU has nothing of the kind. In urging us to embed ourselves more deeply in the EU’s federalising structures, the Americans are urging us down a course they would never dream of going themselves. That is because they are a nation conceived in liberty. They sometimes seem to forget that we are quite fond of liberty, too.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-barack-obama-remain-campaign-brexit-europe-a6927731.html
NewsUKUK Politics
EU referendum: Barack Obama to urge Britons to back remain vote on UK visit
Exclusive: Prospect of intervention is major coup for the pro-EU campaign, but has prompted fury from Brexiteers
Mark Leftly @MLeftly Saturday 12 March 2016601 comments
Barack Obama will jet into the UK next month and use his star power to convince Britons they should vote to stay in the European Union.
The timing of the US President’s intervention, a major coup for the Remain campaign, is revealed by The Independent on Sunday, as a ComRes poll for this newspaper finds that Boris Johnson, unofficial leader of the Leave campaign, matches David Cameron on “trust” – suggesting that the referendum could be closely fought. Asked which of the two they trust more to do what is best for Britain, 35 per cent say Mr Cameron and 34 per cent Mr Johnson.
Mr Obama’s visit will also help restore relations with Mr Cameron. In an interview last week, the US president accused the Prime Minister of being “distracted” over the Libya campaign.
This has been viewed as an unprecedented rift between countries that are supposed to have a “special relationship”. Mr Obama appeared to suggest that Mr Cameron did not help oversee the transition to a stable government after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, though the President’s advisers have since insisted he did not mean to be critical.
A No 10 source confirmed that Mr Obama will make his intervention and visit the UK as an extra leg of a trip to Germany next month. He is scheduled to open the Hannover Messe 2016 technology fair on 24 April.
What has the European Parliament ever done for us?
The source said: “Barack Obama is coming over at around that time. You wouldn’t look stupid saying that [the President is going to tell British voters to stay in the EU]. It would be pretty shocking if he didn’t ask voters to stay in the EU.”
Rumours have circulated for months that Mr Obama, who is considered the greatest electoral campaigner of his generation after becoming the first black person to win the White House in 2008, would intervene on the EU vote.
SHORT VIDEO Boris UK would not join the EU today
Bob Corker, the chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, said last month that Mr Obama was planning “a big, public reach-out” to persuade British voters of the merits of staying in the EU. But several government and Remain campaign sources have now confirmed the timing and added that he will fly into the UK to make a direct appeal to the British electorate.
The IoS can also reveal a host of high-profile names who have joined the Women In campaign, led by Jenny Halpern Prince. These are journalist and television presenter Mariella Frostrup, award-winning computer scientist Dr Sue Black, and author Kathy Lette.
Brexiteers are furious at the prospect of Mr Obama swaying undecided British voters. A pre-emptive online petition has nearly 16,000 signatories, who want to “Stop President Obama from speaking inside our Westminster Parliament concerning Britain staying inside the European Union”. Steve Baker, the Conservative MP who said Britain’s recent EU membership renegotiations were akin to “polishing poo”, told the IoS: “Whenever a US president intervenes in our constitutional future, I always reread the US Declaration of Independence. We will solve peacefully at the ballot box the problem for which their nation fought a bloody war of insurrection.
“I will take lessons from the US president when the US accepts a supreme court over its own, and free movement from Canada to Central America – but God bless America!”
Peter Bone, another Conservative MP who is prominent in the Leave campaign, added: “Why should President Obama tell the UK whether we should be part of a European superstate or a sovereign nation? He should keep his comments, his views, to himself.”
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has welcomed Mr Obama's visit (Getty)
But Tim Farron, leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, said Mr Obama’s visit was “welcome”. He added: “This is a reminder that if Britain wants to be a big player on the world stage, then being in the EU is one of the ways we achieve it.
“Sometimes our friends from outside have a clear picture on where we stand. People often refer to the fact that we’re the fifth biggest economy in the world, but they forget we were only the seventh biggest economy when we joined the European Community [in 1973]. Our political relevance is enhanced by the EU.”
Mr Farron’s pro-EU stance has taken a surprising knock by the establishment of a Liberal Democrat Brexit campaign, headed by former MP Paul Keetch. Mr Farron said: “It wouldn’t be the Lib Dems if someone didn’t oppose what 99.5 per cent of the party agree with.”
A White House spokesman said there was no UK visit to announce “at this time”.