THE past is, as HP Lovecraft said, a foreign country. And if we know anything about Tory Brexiteers it’s that they hate foreign countries. Which is why Boris Johnson and Liam Fox had such a tricky day yesterday.
A reporter asked Johnson to disown comments made in the referendum about 80 million Turks coming to live in the UK if we remained in the EU. He told the Channel 4 journo that he “didn’t say anything about Turkey during the referendum. Since I made no remarks…I can’t disown them”.
Which is not even close to true. He mentioned Turkey several times, including on live TV. And of course, he was a leading member of the Vote Leave campaign, which produced a poster with the slogan: “Turkey, population 76m, is joining the EU. Vote Leave – Take Back Control.”
Meanwhile, Fox was forced to confront his 2017 promise that the UK could “replicate the 40 free trade agreements before we leave the EU”.
With just 10 weeks to go, how many have we replicated? Er...none.
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