Opponents to the Brexit vote are responding with a level of "hysteria" and "contagious mourning" resembling the reaction to Princess Diana's death in 1997, former London mayor and Brexit supporter Boris Johnson says, and he doesn't quite understand the confusion the "Lefties" have.
"Naturally, Lefties might want laws to protect the workforce, but they would surely want those laws to be made by politicians that the people could remove at elections," Johnson wrote in his regular weekly
column for The Daily Telegraph.
Johnson said on Friday, protesters showed up outside his home, and he was taken aback.
"What exactly is it about the EU that attracts the fervent admiration of north London radicals?" said Johnson. "It was the first time I had ever heard of trendy socialists demonstrating in favour of an unelected supranational bureaucracy."
There has been a large backlash among the 48 percent of voters who had cast ballots to stay in the EU, including calls for a referendum vote,
notes CNBC, and among younger voters, there is a fear of the loss of freedoms, such as freedom of the movement of people and goods throughout the EU nations.
On Saturday, an estimated 50,000 protesters took place in a rally in London, with speakers including musician Bob Geldof, who John said is encouraging "confusion about the EU" to the younger protesters.
"It is not about the EU, of course; or not solely," Johnson wrote. "A great many of these protesters – like dear old Geldof — are in a state of some confusion about the EU and what it does . . . When Geldof tells them that the older generation has 'stolen your future' by voting to leave the EU, I am afraid there are too many who still believe it. It is time for this nonsense to end."
Fears over the Brexit vote, he continued, are "wildly overdone. The reality is that the stock market has not plunged, as some said it would — far from it. The FTSE is higher than when the vote took place. There has been no emergency budget, and nor will there be."
Meanwhile, he continued there are no risks to the EU nationals "now resident and welcome in the UK," and immigration will continue in a way that is controlled and will neutralize the extremists.
Johnson also downplayed concerns about free trade, commenting that will be in the EU's interests to do a free-trade deal with Great Britain; the nation will be able to do trade deals with rest of the world, and the nation will continue to lead on security and other matters while being under its own rule.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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