Boris Johnson in furious attack on David Cameron’s EU peace claim

Retaliation: Boris Johnson says Nato, not Brussels, keeps Europe together
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Boris Johndon today led a furious fightback against David Cameron for claiming that Britain leaving the European Union could endanger peace on the Continent.

In a highly charged speech, the former Mayor of London said it was the EU that had become “a force for instability and alienation”, while Nato ensured peace.

The pair made keynote speeches within hours of each other in central London, marking the relaunch of the EU referendum battle by both sides after the local elections.

Mr Johnson, who speaks fluent French and gets by in German, Greek, Spanish and Italian, said he found it “offensive and cretinous” to be branded a Little Englander “sometimes by people who can barely speak a foreign language”.

He added: “I am a child of Europe.”

He threw the gauntlet down to the Prime Minister to answer five key questions about the “deal” he struck for EU reform — and in particular to explain how immigration would be cut.

“How can you possibly control EU immigration into this country?” the Conservative MP demanded. He also asked how the Living Wage could be stopped from being “a big pull factor” for more migrants, how the European Court would be stopped from “interfering further” in migration and human rights issues, and accused Mr Cameron of giving up a veto on moves towards “a fiscal and political union”.

“How can you stop us from being dragged in, and from being made to pay?” asked Mr Johnson, adding: “The answer is that the Remain campaign have no answers to any of these questions.” He said the Prime Minister’s deal, struck in February, was “an offence against the Trade Descriptions Act”.

Earlier, the Prime Minister talked up the security implications of a Brexit in a well-trailed speech delivered at the British Museum.

Answering questions, he rejected claims he was “crying wolf” over the dangers of war, saying genocide in the Balkans in the Nineties was a fact.

Mr Cameron said: “The idea that the EU has emasculated our power as a nation — this is complete nonsense.”

His speech built on warnings by two former spy chiefs — Lord Evans of Weardale, former director-general of MI5, and ex-MI6 chief Sir John Sawers — that Brexit could harm the country’s ability to fight terrorism.

“It takes a network to defeat a network and European measures are a key weapon,” said Mr Cameron.

But Mr Johnson hit back: “I saw the disaster when the EU was charged with sorting out former Yugoslavia, and I saw how Nato sorted it out.”

In tonight’s Evening Standard, the chairman of the Commons’ powerful Foreign Affairs Select Committee comes out as a Brexiteer. Crispin Blunt writes: “I believe it is in the long-term interest of both Britain and the EU to do so.”

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