James O'Brien's Stark Take On Why Boris Johnson Backed Brexit
22 July 2019, 15:46 | Updated: 22 July 2019, 20:30
James O'Brien tells LBC that Boris Johnson backed Brexit because he thought it was his best chance to become Prime Minister, but he always thought it would fail.
James said he thought Boris Johnson decided his "best chance of becoming Prime Minister" would be served by campaigning to leave the European Union, in a referendum "he expected to lose."
He said it wasn't "particularly Machiavellian" because the calculation was "of course we won't leave, because that would be blinking stupid."
But, James said, a significant "wave of the right wing of this country, the Conservative voters, have been successfully persuaded the European Union is an appalling and oppressive body."
During his monologue, James said that Boris Johnson was "more responsible than anybody else over the last 30 years for spreading and disseminating the nonsense that the European Union was a malevolent entity, dedicated to complicating our lives and crushing our spirit."
"He's the king," James said "of the bendy bananas, he's the king of the banning cheese and onion crisps, or rocking horse, or three-pin plugs, or whatever it is."
James said Mr Johnson's role as a Brussels correspondent enabled him to send "provocative and inflammatory nonsense back to Britain in order to exercise the population."
James said that Boris Johnson knows "better than anybody, how deep rooted that belief is, because he rooted it."
Watch the whole fascinating monologue in the video at the top of the page.
