Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s decision, after months of prevarication, to back the ‘Out’ campaign in the June 23 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union is a major boost to its cause — as much as it spells the loss of support that a popular and articulate politician like Mr. Johnson would have brought the “In” campaign.
Mr. Johnson, who is a Member of Parliament and a contender for the role of leader of the Conservative Party after Prime Minister David Cameron, claimed that the delay in making the announcement was because the issue had him “conflicted.” On Sunday, seven senior Cabinet Ministers rejected Mr. Cameron’s call for support to Britian’s continued membership of a reformed EU.
In a sharply-argued defence of his decision to back Brexit published in the Daily Telegraph , Mr. Johnson likened EU penetration into Britain’s polity and economy to a ratchet, “clicking only forwards,” in a non-stop process of “legal colonisation, as the EU infiltrates just about every area of public policy.”
Each new treaty — not just the Maastricht (1992), but also Amsterdam (1997), Nice (2003) and Lisbon (2009) — has tightened the grip of the EU over Britain’s institutions and sovereignty, he argued, citing the House of Commons library that “anything between 15 and 50 per cent of U.K. legislation now comes from the EU.”
“The more the EU does, the less room there is for national decision-making,” Mr. Johnson wrote.
“Mr. Johnson’s support for Brexit will definitely help the Out campaign, and in at least three ways,” said Professor Anand Menon, Director of The UK in a Changing Europe, a research unit at King’s College, London. “First he has such a high profile, it will get them considerable media coverage. Secondly, it might get Conservative MPs and other members of the Conservative Party to follow him. And thirdly, he has a broader appeal than his party. He is a popular politician.”