Boris Johnson, the leader of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union (EU), showed “political amnesia” with his “absurd” comparison between the EU and Adolf Hitler’s plan to rule the continent, the EU’s Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
The response of the European Council president to the former London Mayor was among the bluntest yet from a Brussels establishment that has been anxious not to stir a backlash in Britain while urging Britons to opt to remain in the bloc.
Referendum in June Britain will hold a referendum on EU membership next month. Mr. Johnson, a potential Prime Minister if fellow Conservative David Cameron fails to keep Britain in the EU, told a newspaper that unifying authority in Europe could not work: “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically.”
Mr. Tusk told reporters in Copenhagen that Mr. Johnson had suffered “amnesia” and a “dangerous blackout” of memory, adding that the EU was “a common tool, not a super-state”, a means for states to cooperate rather than form a separate government for Europe.
