Cameron “misleading the public” over Turkey say Brexiteers
David Cameron has been accused of misleading British voters in a growing row over the prospects of Turkey joining the EU.
Cameron appeared on Peston on Sunday earlier today to refute the claims of armed forces minister Penny Mordaunt, who had earlier claimed that Britain would not be able to prevent Turkey from joining the European Union.
“It is not remotely on the cards that Turkey is going to join any time soon,” Cameron said, adding that Britain could veto its accession.
However, former foreign secretary Lord Owen responded: “Only nine weeks ago David Cameron committed the country at the European Council to re-energise the accession process of Turkey into the EU.
“The EU is continuing the preparatory work for Turkey at an accelerating pace with all of this going forward in parallel.”
A spokesman for the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign hit back by noting that former London Mayor Boris Johnson has previously described the chances of Turkey joining the EU as between “nil and 20 per cent”.
In a mid-March interview with LBC, Johnson said: “I think the chances of the Turks readily acceding to the European Union are between, you know, nil and 20 per cent… Well, probably lower than that. I mean, it's not going to happen in the… foreseeable future.
“And if it were to happen, what you wouldn't get…is anything to do with free movement. I think that is where people are rightly spooked at the moment. They think the idea of suddenly 75 million Turks having the, you know, and all of those coming in to Turkey notionally having rights of free travel, visa-free travel to the EU, that's just simply not on the cards."
A spokesman for Downing Street declined to comment.