British officials are suffering “Stockholm syndrome” through Britain’s imprisonment by the EU, Boris Johnson has said.
The mayor of London also revealed that government lawyers vetoed a last-minute plan to make clear that parliament could overrule EU law, which meant he could not campaign for Britain to keep its EU membership, he said.
It comes with No 10 still facing questions over whether it had any role in the suspension of John Longworth as director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, who backed the campaign to leave last week.
Mr Johnson said that Britain had a “golden opportunity” to leave the EU, which he characterised as a prison from which voters must not be frightened to escape. “The jailer has accidentally left the door open and people can see the sunlit land beyond — and everybody’s suddenly wrangling about the terrors of the world outside,” he told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One. “Actually it will be wonderful. It would be a huge weight lifted from British business.”
He said that “such is the Stockholm syndrome [hostages’ empathy for their kidnappers] capture of officials in this country” that they tried to insist that the tunnels for Crossrail be made 50 per cent bigger to fit German trains.
Advertisement
He added that he had been part of “a huge effort” to make clear that parliament and UK courts could overturn judgments of the European Court of Justice. “The government lawyers blew up and said ‘this basically voids our obligations under the 1972 European Communities Act, it doesn’t work’,” he said. “We were told that there was going to be fundamental reform. We didn’t achieve that.”
He conceded that there may be job losses in the short term through Brexit and was criticised by fellow Conservatives for a “rambling performance”. Ruth Davidson, the Tories’ leader in Scotland, said that Mr Johnson was floundering, adding: “Not sure the bumble-bluster, kitten smirk, tangent-bombast routine is cutting through.”
Sir Nicholas Soames, MP for Mid Sussex, raised doubts about whether Mr Johnson wanted to leave the EU at all. Some Tories believe that he has backed the Out campaign to win support for a leadership bid.
Senior government figures backing Britain’s membership also pounced on comments from Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, that Britain would have to agree to the EU’s free movement rules and pay into its budget if it wanted access to the single market in the event of Brexit.
A cabinet source said: “He speaks for Germany. It’s clear that the Leave campaign can’t answer basic questions about what deal they would negotiate.”
Advertisement
Anger remains among Brexit campaigners over Mr Longworth’s suspension. Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, has vowed to ask in the Commons whether there was any contact between the BCC and No 10 before he was suspended.
● Charities have been told that the possible loss of EU funding does not justify allowing them to campaign for a vote to stay in. The Charity Commission told trustees that political activity “can only be undertaken in support of charitable purposes” and it would be monitoring activity.