PODCAST: Listen to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss George Osborne’s performance:
In a feisty interview with Andrew Neil, George Osborne has just declared that Turkey is not going to become a member of the EU. Osborne said that ‘Turkey has gone backwards’ since 2010 when David Cameron voiced his enthusiastic support for it joining the EU. He then went on to say, ‘Is it going to be a member of the European Union? No, it is not’.
I suspect that Osborne’s intervention won’t end the Turkish issue in this referendum campaign. It is, after all, still official government policy that Turkey should join the EU at some point. But the fact that Osborne went this far in this interview is a sign of how keen the Remain side are to get this issue out of the EU referendum debate.
Osborne was unapologetic about emphasising the risks of leaving.
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