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British politicians keep mentioning Hitler and we're not sure why

Picture: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Picture: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Just when you thought it was safe it turns out another British politician has felt the need to bring up Adolf Hitler.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph leading light of the Leave EU campaign Boris Johnson seems to have claimed that the EU’s attempts to give democratic representation to 28 countries has failed for the same reasons Hitler was not able to invade and murder his way to world domination.

Let's (attempt to) break down the logic of this, shall we.

Hitler was German. He wanted Germany to rule the world. The EU is trying to rule Europe, and then maybe (who knows?) the world. And Germany is doing very well in the EU. So the EU is, via Germany, Hitler.

We know it’s confusing but stick with us, regardless of the potentially deep offence caused to Germany, which, by the way, buys £43 billion of our exports a year, and who has taken about 900,000 more refugees from the Middle East, despite having less military involvement in that region than us.

The EU has allowed Germany to grow in power, says Johnson, and so “take over” the Italian economy and “destroy Greece”.

The Italians, who used to be a great motor-manufacturing power, have been absolutely destroyed by the Euro – as was intended by the Germans.

So Germany really wants Europe to fall apart.

Which is confusing, when you find that Boris also says the Germans, via the EU, are trying to get everyone to get on better.

And how's this for a bit of free advice: never further your argument by dropping the H-bomb.

Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

So the reason we’re not all united is because we keep trying to do it! Not, er, comments like these.

We might excuse Boris on the grounds of channelling what appears to be an uncontrollable Mayor-of-London tic which requires any who leaves the post to say ‘HITLER’ in conversations on you know, Zionism, or, um, the Euro.

Yet it seems he’s mentioned the Nazi leader with about as much frequency as he mentions that other go-to figure in history, Winston Churchill.

Perhaps the MP for Uxbridge and Ruislip, tipped as the next Tory leader, in fact sees himself in a kind of historical reenactment in which, WWII being absent, he can champion the British cause against the German one as Churchill once did.

Just during, um, a historical period of peace for Europe when everyone’s possibly more stressed about how to buy a house.

More: Boris Johnson just sang 'Ode to Joy' in German to prove some sort of point we guess

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