In an op-ed published by The Sun Friday, London Mayor Boris Johnson seemed to criticize the 2009 removal of a Winston Churchill bust from the White House and used Churchill’s legacy to push for leaving the European Union.
Johnson wrote in The Sun how the Obama administration removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and returned it “without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington.”
“No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision.”
“Some said it was a snub to Britain,” Johnson expanded. “Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire — of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender. Some said that perhaps Churchill was seen as less important than he once was. Perhaps his ideas were old-fashioned and out of date.”
“Well, if that’s why Churchill was banished from the Oval Office, they could not have been more wrong.”
Throughout the remainder of the piece, Johnson criticizes the U.S. for pressuring the UK to stay in the EU as “a breathtaking example of the principle of do-as-I-say-but-not-as-I-do.”
“It is deeply anti-democratic — and much as I admire the United States, and much as I respect the President, I believe he must admit that his country would not dream of embroiling itself in anything of the kind,” the mayor stated. “The US guards its democracy with more hysterical jealousy than any other country on earth.”