Much has been made of the news that Boris Johnson intends to return to parliament at next year’s general election. The announcement, made in the Q&A session after his speech about London, Britain and the European Union, has got Westminster all hot and bothered. But another of Boris’s answers in that session also deserves to be highlighted.
Gerard Lyons’s report for the mayor sets out 8 key points of European reform, ranging from changing the relationship between the Eurozone and non-eurozone countries, to the completion of the single market, to halting unnecessary regulations. But Boris went much further than this when responding to a question from Peter Wilding, director of the in-at-all-costs campaign British Influence. Boris gave a list of specific reforms that he wanted to see:
- Scrap social and environmental legislation
- Scrap the Common Agriculture Policy
- Put justice and home affairs back as an intergovernmental competence
- Strike out the provision for ever closer union
- A yellow card system for national parliaments
- Managed migration so that Britain has greater control over immigration
- Completion of the single market in services
This is a serious agenda for reform and renegotiation.
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