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26th Nov 2018

Leave campaign ‘lied’ to British public according to Emmanuel Macron

Kyle Picknell

The French PM has accused Brexiteers of lying to the public

French President Emmanuel Macron accused the Leave campaign of lying to the British public during a speech he gave in Brussels on Sunday.

Mr Macron stated in no uncertain terms that he believed the Brexiteers that campaigned for Britain to leave the EU were dishonest, both in terms of promising that Britain would be wealthier after withdrawing from the common market and in how straightforward, as a process, Brexit would actually be.

“Those who told the British people that it would be quick and easy lied because we’ve been negotiating for almost two years,” he said.

“Lots of people said it wouldn’t cost anything, that it would earn money for the British, the cost which we talked about several months ago is massive. Massive. And it’s in this withdrawal agreement.

So once again those who told the British people they were going to save tens or hundreds of billions of euros, or of pounds, lied to them. And the result is in the agreement today: all that comes at a cost. So I’m not one of the people who thinks this is nothing.”

The French premier commented that Sunday’s conference, which culminated in Theresa May finally proposing a withdrawal agreement to the EU’s 27 heads of state,  marked an ‘important step’. He did, however, concede that there is still a long way to go before the process is complete.