Islam Times - London's ex-mayor likens EU to Hitler in bid to create superstate

Islam Times - The former mayor of London and a leading British figure in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union has accused the EU of behaving like Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler by trying to create a superstate.

"Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods," said Boris Johnson in an interview with British daily Sunday Telegraph.

His controversial remarks came six weeks ahead of the June 23 vote with opinion polls suggesting the referendum outcome is too close to call.

Johnson, a leading member of the ruling Conservative Party of Prime Minister David Cameron, further stated that the last 2,000 years of the European history featured repeated efforts to bring the continent together under a single government, emulating the Roman empire.

"But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe,” he said. "There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void."

Cameron, however, is leading a rival campaign to keep Britain in the EU.

The rival "Remain" and "Leave" camps are presently even at 50 percent each, according to the What UK Thinks website's average of the last six opinion polls.

However, another poll for Sunday's newspapers suggested that Johnson is more trusted by the British public than Cameron to tell the truth about Europe. While 45 percent said they trusted Johnson, only 21 percent said they trusted Cameron.