The EU and security: why Boris Johnson is so wrong

On 9 May, Boris Johnson sought to challenge the idea that the EU has contributed to peace in Europe, laying the credit for that instead at the feet of NATO. He has had a change of heart, and it is worth looking at the real security story.

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StrongerIN have rightly seized on his words: his actions smack of political opportunism, and sound as if his support for leaving the EU and his personal ambition to become Prime Minister are closely linked.

An immediate riposte is that the mechanisms of the EU do limit the ability of Maverick politicians to play opportunistic games of rabble-rousing. This is no bad thing. People might claim it as undemocratic, but democracy does assume that voters are well-informed and rational: manipulative games also undermine democracy.

But Johnson’s narrative gets the whole thing horribly wrong.

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