Jean-Claude Juncker has said that Remain-backing former Tory Prime Minister David Cameron was “one of the greatest destroyers of all time” for stopping the European Commission from being involved in the UK’s 2016 referendum Remain campaign.
The president of the European Union’s unelected executive arm told the regional parliament of Saarland, Germany, on Monday in comments reported by The Telegraph, “We were forbidden from being present in any way in the referendum campaign by Mr. Cameron, who is one of the great destroyers of modern times.
“Because he said the Commission is even less popular in the UK than it is in other EU member states.”
“If we had been able to take part in this campaign, we could have asked — and also answered — many questions that are only being asked now,” he added in assertions that the democratic decision of British citizens required the input of Brussels.
The comments echo similar remarks made by the Commission chief in March 2017 when Mr Juncker said, “I have met in my life two big destroyers: Gorbachev, who destroyed the Soviet Union, and Cameron, who destroyed the United Kingdom to some extent.”
Mr Cameron tried to portray himself, in public, as a defender of British sovereignty against EU powergrabbing in 2014 when he said of then-presidential candidate Juncker that he was the “wrong person” to lead the Commission, saying the Luxembourgish politician had been “at the heart of the project to increase the power of Brussels and reduce the power of nation states for his entire working life.”
However, Mr Juncker told media in February 2018 that Cameron had later apologised numerous times for refusing to back his candidacy — within months of the Eurocrat’s appointment.
Concerned that a ‘purple wave’ of UKIP voters led by then-party leader Nigel Farage would return a high number of the party’s candidates to the British Parliament in 2015, Europhile and then-Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that if his party won the election, he would hold a referendum of the UK’s membership of the EU. Campaigning for Remain, Mr Cameron resigned days after the people delivered a vote to leave.
Mr Juncker’s comments come after he expressed frustration over the Brexit process, telling Italian state television RAI on Sunday, saying, “With our British friends we have a lot of patience, but even patience is running out.”
“So far we know what the British parliament says no to, but we don’t know what it might say yes to,” Mr Juncker said, adding that he wants parliamentarians to agree on what they want “in the coming hours and days.”
Juncker’s overestimation the EU’s influence in a nation’s ability to leave the bloc manifested again last month, when the European Commission president threatened that either the UK accept the controversial Withdrawal Agreement, or “Brexit might not happen at all.”