European Union is trying to emulate Hitler, says UK’s Boris Johnson

Former London mayor Boris Johnson claimed the European Union was behaving like Germany’s Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler by trying to create a superstate, in a Sunday newspaper interview.

Mr Johnson is one of the leading figures campaigning for Britain to leave the EU in closely-fought referendum being held on June 23.

His comments drew swift criticism from opponents, who said they were “offensive” and showed a “lack of judgement”.

Mr Johnson said the last two thousand years of European history had featured repeated efforts to bring the continent together under a single government, emulating the Roman empire.

“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods,” Mr Johnson told the Sunday Telegraph.

“But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe.”

“There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.”

Hilary Benn, foreign affairs spokesperson for the Labour party, and a supporter of EU membership, called the comparison “offensive”.

“After the horror of the Second World War, the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate,” he said. Another leading pro-EU Labour figure, Yvette Cooper, said Johnson was playing a “nasty, nasty” game. “The more he flails around with this kind of hysterical claim, the more he exposes his shameful lack of judgement,” she added.