London’s mayor announces he will campaign for Brexit – but is not prepared to debate the issue with other Conservatives on TV
Nicholas Watt Chief political correspondent
Sunday 21 February 2016 21.21 GMTLast modified on Monday 22 February 201607.34 GMT
David Cameron takes his battle to keep Britain in the EU to MPs on Monday after hitting the most serious political obstacle yet when Boris Johnson announced on Sunday that “after a huge amount of heartache” he is to back the leave campaign.
The prime minister will publish a white paper on his EU reform plans before making a statement to MPs on last week’s European council.
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In a sign of a near collapse in relations between the pair, the London mayor texted Cameron at 4.40pm to tell him of his plans minutes before explaining his “agonisingly difficult” decision on his north London doorstep.
Johnson told a scrum of reporters and cameramen outside his Islington home: “I will be advocating vote leave – or whatever the team is called, I understand there are a lot of them – because I want a better deal for the people of this country, to save them money and to take control. That is really what this is all about.”
The intervention by the London mayor, which he had promised last week would amount to a “deafening éclat”, marks a severe blow to the remain campaign and will transform the fortunes of the leave campaign. It is also a personal humiliation for the prime minister who had urged Johnson hours earlier to avoid “linking arms” with Nigel Farage and George Galloway in backing a British exit from the EU. In an email on Saturday morning Johnson had warned Cameron that he was likely to back the leave side but he received no reply.
Johnson, who has faced criticism that he made his decision in a way calculated to guarantee his best chances in the next Tory leadership contest, tried to make clear that he was acting out of conviction. In his statement outside his home, the London mayor praised the prime minister for doing “fantastically well” in his EU negotiations.
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“I think everybody should pay tribute to David Cameron for what he pulled off in a very short space of time,” Johnson said. But he then added that the prime minister had failed in his main goal to reform the EU. “I don’t think anybody could realistically claim that this is fundamental reform of the EU or of Britain’s relationships with the EU.”
Johnson added: “I would like to see a new relationship based more on trade, on cooperation, with much less of this supranational element. So that is where I’m coming from and that is why I have decided, after a huge amount of heartache, because the last thing I wanted was to go against David Cameron or the government, I don’t think there is anything else I can do.”
Following Johnson’s announcement there were early signs that it could be a volatile day for sterling before the opening of the Asian markets.
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Downing Street has been irritated by Johnson who has, in their eyes, dithered in making up his mind over the last year. Over the summer he flirted with the idea, promoted by the vote leave campaign director Dominic Cummings, to hold two referendums to reassure undecided voters that the initial one would not mark a definitive break.
The prime minister killed off the idea of two referendums in the autumn. Johnson then called on Cameron to outline a plan to re-assert the sovereignty of parliament. The prime minister is due to announce his sovereignty plan despite the mayor’s announcement.
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Senior Tories contrasted the way Johnson dragged out his announcement with the clear way in which Michael Gove announced he would campaign to leave the EU. Downing Street realised the die was cast around thee time Johnson invited Gove and his wife Sarah Vine for dinner on Tuesday of last week.
The decision by Johnson will come as a severe blow to the pro-EU campaign, which will be disappointed not to have won over one of the most popular politicians in Britain. A YouGov/Prospect survey last October found that the pro-EU majority would see its support increase from three points to 18 – a 15% bounce – if Johnson and Cameron both campaigned to remain.
The vote leave campaign was delirious at Sunday’s announcement. It will have a simple answer to criticisms that they are only supported by politicians on the fringes of the main parties. Vote leave tweeted a new version of Johnson’s London mayoral campaign cartoon of him with the simple message: “Welcome aboard, @BorisJohnson! #VoteLeave.”
Downing Street issued a low-key response. A No 10 spokesman said: “Our message to everyone is we want Britain to have the best of both worlds: all the advantages of the jobs and investment that come with being in the EU, without the downsides of being in the euro and open borders.”
But the Britain stronger in Europe group showed its concern by wheeling out Lord Heseltine, the former Tory deputy prime minister who was Johnson’s immediate predecessor as MP for Henley during his first stint in parliament. Heseltine said: “Given that Boris has spent so long agonising over this decision, his decision is illogical. If it takes you this long to make up your mind about something so fundamental and you still have questions, then surely the right option is to stay with what you know rather than risk our economy and security with a leap in the dark.”
In his statement Johnson addressed claims that he is being an opportunist to boost his Tory leadership credentials. “The big battalions of the argument are unquestionably ranged against people like me. We are portrayed as crazy, cracked and all the rest of it,” Johnson said.
“I don’t mind. I happen to think that I am right. It is a very, very difficult case to make. I have thought an awful lot about it. I have thought about it for many years.”
In his weekly Daily Telegraph column, Johnson moves to address a potential weakness for the Leave campaign by saying that it is not xenophobic to want to leave the EU. He writes: “I am a European. I lived many years in Brussels. I rather love the old place. And so I resent the way we continually confuse Europe – the home of the greatest and richest culture in the world, to which Britain is and will be an eternal contributor – with the political project of the European Union. It is therefore vital to stress that there is nothing necessarily anti-European or xenophobic in wanting to vote Leave on 23 June.”
London’s mayor is likely to have heeded the advice of one of the six cabinet ministers campaigning for a leave vote that the next Tory leader will have campaigned to leave the EU. Johnson will have calculated that campaigning to leave and losing is survivable given that the Tory grassroots are overwhelmingly eurosceptic. Campaigning to stay in and losing could have been fatal.
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The prime minister may think twice about offering Johnson a major cabinet post if he wins the referendum. Cameron sought to increase the pressure on Johnson by warning that a vote to leave represented a “leap into the dark” and would involve sharing platforms with unsavoury, at least for Tories, politicians.
In an interview on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show the prime minister said: “The prospect of linking arms with Nigel Farage and George Galloway and taking a leap into the dark is the wrong step for our country.”
The prime minister sought to pre-empt an attack from the London mayor if he backed a UK exit by saying the only way to guarantee UK sovereignty is by leaving the EU. Cameron said: “You have an illusion of sovereignty [by leaving the EU] but you don’t have power, you don’t have control.”
Johnson responded by saying he would not be taking part in “loads of bloomin’ TV debates against other members of my party” and would not be sharing any platforms with Galloway. The London mayor said Cameron should remain if he loses the referendum. “Whatever happens, and I have said this to the prime minister, he has got to stay.”
The pro-EU Britain stronger in Europe group released a lengthy dossier showing that, while he is eurosceptic, Johnson has always supported UK membership of the EU.
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