Major's hypocrisy is shocking beyond belief

Former Prime Minister Sir John Major appeared on the Andrew Marr show yesterday attacking the Vote Leave campaign headed by Gove and Johnson. He suggested that he was 'angry about the way the British people are being misled', accusing Vote Leave for distributing 'inaccurate information.' Major summarised his personal views of the Vote Leave campaign by labelling their campaign as 'squalid' and 'deceitful.'

"They are feeding out to the British people a whole galaxy of inaccurate and frankly untrue information.

"And what they have not done is tell us what would be the position if we were to vote to leave," he told Andrew Marr.

Nonetheless, his comments have only riled the Vote Leave campaign. Matthew Elliott, director of the Vote Leave campaign, suggested that Major's comments were 'sad' and 'slightly mad.'

Despite this, what right does Major have to attack the Vote Leave campaign as 'deceitful'? This is the same man who lied to the British people during his brief stint as chancellor, and throughout the early days of his gloomy premiership, about the benefits of joining the European Rate Mechanism (ERM). The ERM was part of the European Monetary System designed to reduce exchange rate variability and achieve money stability in Europe. His then chancellor, Norman Lamont (now a Leave campaigner), was forced to rapidly pull out of the ERM and devalue Sterling. Interest rates hit 15%. The events of Black Wednesday unfolded. And Major broke his promise that taxes would not increase, yet VAT reached 17.5%, and VAT remained at that level until 2008. It is rather concerning for the In campaign that such a man is now promoting the benefits of staying in the European Union (EU) when this is the same man who witnessed for himself the dawning consequences of European integration and suffered at the hands of the British electorate in 1997 for misleading the British people in such a shameful and dishonest way. Ironically, this is what he accuses the Vote Leave campaign of now.

The events of Black Wednesday should be a reminder to us all about what happens when Britain abandons the gravy train of European integration. By 1997, Britain's economy was booming again because we were free from the shackles of the ERM. Unemployment was at its lowest levels ever when New Labour came to power. European integration failed then, and it is failing now. Why should we be lectured to by such a man again?

Also, this is the same man who lied to his own wife, Norma, about his affair with Edwina Currie for many years. Pity the latter never thought much of Major in years to come, tarnishing him as a poor prime minister in her own autobiography.

The Major government may have delivered years of prosperity during its final days which allowed New Labour to inherit a golden chalice from them, but let us not listen to the 'squalid' and 'deceitful' comments of Major again. He cost people their mortgages in the early 1990s due to his love affair with the EU. He never possessed the courage to deliver a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. His comments should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.